The Dancing Man
by G.E Waldo
Summary: Mycroft and John square off on a quest to keep Sherlock safe from what Mycroft see's as his brother's reckless judgement under what he decides if John Watson's ineffectual assistance that is endangering his brother's life. Plus two murder cases that not only challenge Sherlock's incredible abilities but pushes him to his mental limits. A continuation of The Glass Heart. (Slightly
1. Chapter 1

**The Dancing Man **

By GE Waldo

**Rating**: Mature.

**Pairing**: John/Mary and Sherlock/OMC (sort of), and eventually Johnlock but probably nothing especially sexually graphic. Take warning though just in case!

**Summary**: Mycroft and John square off on a quest to keep Sherlock safe from what Mycroft see's as his brother's reckless judgement under what he decides if John Watson's ineffectual assistance that is endangering his brother's life. Plus two murder cases that not only challenge Sherlock's incredible abilities but pushes him to his mental limits. A continuation of **The Glass Heart**. (Slightly AU (In this universe Irene Adler and Moriarty are dead for sure and the story is set during a time of limbo _after_ Sherlock is back from the dead but _before_ Watson and Mary's wedding. **Duration**: several months at least)).

**Disclaimer**: Not mine but a fantasy never hurt anyone.

SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH

"_...everything that kills me makes me feel alive; everything that drowns me makes me want to fly..." __OneRepublic_

SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH

"There are _feet_ in the refrigerator." John said as he reached passed the offending appendages to reach the milk, wedging his hand into a shape as small as possible so as not to touch Sherlock's latest experimental 'visitors'.

Idly flipping through the morning paper Sherlock remarked "John Watson, meet John Doe."

"What are you trying to learn this time - how to turn my stomach before breakfast?" Despite himself John squinted at the dead man's even, trimmed toe-nails. There was no sign of yellowing. "This fellow was quite young," he said, "Car accident?"

"Irrelevant but one thing is for certain – he used to be taller."

With a twist to his lip, Watson added milk to his coffee and nodded to the paper. Cadavers were never his favorite part of medical school. Now he was surrounded by their smaller reminders weekly. Incredible the little vulgarities a soul can get used to providing the larger servings of life – John glanced at Sherlock in his snug-fitting black Italian suit and flawless complexion - were of the highest refinement. Nodding to the newspaper in Sherlock's hands - "Anything interesting?" he asked.

By way of answer Sherlock thrust aside the offending morning news as though the local editors were deliberately keeping the good stuff to themselves. "Drivel. Missing daughter, robberies, drunken brawls and one pathetic domestic murder – where oh _where_ are all the _intelligent_ criminals?"

Watson sipped from his mug. "I think you got rid of them all my friend. Perhaps you're too successful for your own good?"

Sherlock looked affronted by the insinuation that he might be responsible for his own boredom and rose from his seat like a man in a jack-in-the-box, as though he could not bear one more moment of stillness. Sherlock reminded John of a snake, his boundless energy wound into a tight coil ready to strike without warning. "What I wouldn't _give_ for a Moriarty." Sherlock swooped into the kitchen and poured his third cup of coffee and asking wistfully "Do you suppose he had a brother?"

"I bloody hope not."

"Sister...?"

John frowned at the questions, and at the cup in Sherlock's hand. The last thing Sherlock Holmes needed was more caffeine playing on the detective's nerves and so, of course, his own. "Sherlock, why don't you ring up Lestrade? He might have something worth your while."

Sherlock stirred his coffee but had not failed to note John's use of the pronouns. "So you will not be attending today?" He asked keeping his tone carefully neutral. The sudden pang in his chest, however, he could not account for.

John suddenly realised how he had said it. "Well, of course I'll be going with you...if anything should turn up." One case had the previous week; the murder of two young men. Lestrade had insisted it was routine. "It's probably nothing..." The Inspector had said but in five seconds Sherlock had gathered up his coat and scarf and disappeared down the stairs so fast John swore there was left behind a little puff of smoke left in his wake.

When Sherlock returned he had photographs that he had taken with his own phone, some preliminary information from the coroner as to the times of death and probable cause, a single sheet of yellowed paper and, in his own words "a _more_ _accurate_ probable cause of death." They had been given overdoses.

Watson had been unable to supplement Sherlock's deductions and within minutes the man had huffed his disappointment through his perfect nose, and then sunk into silence; morphing into classic Sherlock Holmes in a deep funk and he had been that ay ever since.

John joined him at the kitchen table. "Sherlock what's wrong?"

Sherlock spoke without lifting his eyes from the page. "You say you are attending but are you not busy today with some or other pre-wedding activity? You were on your phone with Mary for twenty minutes."

"It's because she's visiting her friend in Cardiff and I wanted to tell her that I loved her."

"It takes twenty minutes to say I love you?" Sherlock asked his eyes on his coffee cup. Tiny vertical lines pinched his brows together. Something unpleasant twisted in his stomach. "You rang her yesterday as well."

John wondered if Sherlock was cataloguing his calls. "Sherlock, she is my fiancée and I enjoy talking to her _and_ saying I love you. I also enjoy, in case you were wondering, helping you with your investigations. Now, are you going to ring up Lestrade or shall I?" Sherlock was approaching his insufferable stage of boredom where everything in creation annoyed him, especially other people's enjoyment of the simple things in which Sherlock himself declined to partake of because they were "boring".

Sherlock tapped one finger on the side of his cooling coffee mug. No matter it supposedly made him a lousy friend he hated to hear about John's happiness with Mary. The worst part was he did like her. She was clever and good to John and his own insight into human behavior – what he understood of it – told him that it was all perfectly acceptable. Only she was also taking John away to live with her and Sherlock found it more and more difficult to ignore how that made him feel.

There were so many aspects of his life that would be altered. John's chair for example, what was he supposed to do with it after John left? Who was going to sit in it and help him work through a case by making all the incorrect deductions but in doing so opened up to him the way to the light of investigative truth?

And, a sudden horror shot through him, would Misses Hudson rent out the upstairs bedroom to someone _else_? If so, to what mental dullard and for god's sake _why _would she anyway? She wouldn't really do that would she? How could he tolerate another set of unfamiliar foot-steps on the stairs each night and every morning? The absence of John's little feet padding around the flat for most of the week was already trying his nerves. John had already moved all of his things out and once Mary returned from Cardiff they would be settling down in her house on the other side of London for good.

What would he do then? With all the endless preparations going on for John's soon-to-be wedded life everyone had seemed to have forgotten about _him_. With John living elsewhere who would bring him home milk and food? And who would he eat it with? Who would cook him breakfast even if he almost never ate it? And what about going out to Angelo's between cases? And the take-away fish and chips John used to pick up for them? And who would make them their morning coffee and their afternoon tea?

Sherlock glanced over to the skull sitting on the mantel. He really didn't want to go back to having one-sided conversations with it. Plus John kept the flat nice and tidy. He seemed to know where to put things so Sherlock could easily find them.

And John_ snored_. In most circumstances that would have been a deal breaker the first week but Sherlock had found the rhythmic rumble coming from up the stairs strangely soothing which bodily noise had lulled him into slumber on many of those difficult nights when his brain refused to slow down.

Inexplicably in only moments Sherlock had found himself in a black depression. After many minutes of silence he spoke and John jumped a bit in his chair, mistakenly thinking that his friend had gone into his mind palace to distract himself from the lack of cases. But apparently he had simply been doing some everyday "normal" musing.

"So if a worthy inquiry presents itself and I need you, you will _not_ stop short with a dire requirement for 'a fitting' or an obligation to meet yet another assortment of Mary's friends?" Sherlock asked.

"I like Mary's friends and, no, as I said we're all set to go." The wedding itself was set to go. Whether he was set to be married was another story and his stomach performed back-flips every time he thought of it. "Now what about we chase down Lestrade for a case?" Then when Sherlock did not respond John's eyebrows shot up with an idea. "I've got it - what about the photo's from that case last week?"

Sherlock now looked up at him. The frost-blue eyes roamed over his features and John felt like he was being, to all intents and purposes, _licked_. Plus he got the distinct impression that Sherlock in answer to his last question was attempting to determine whether or not he was fibbing and was indeed about to rush out the door to arrange for more guest chairs or pick up an over-priced and largely inedible cake.

Finally Sherlock nodded once, seemingly satisfied and instead of taking up the idea of the photographs asked "I wonder, John, once you're completely ensconced in married life, whether or not you wish to continue our association? You will have after all the surgery, your new wife and, seeing how these things usually progress, the sound of little running feet only marginally smaller than your own."

"Doesn't mean I don't want to keep on assisting you and for the tenth time my feet are _not_ that small. They're a size eight."

"A _women's_ seven-point-five in fact. And despite what you _want_ you must know that want doesn't always translate into _able_."

"Sherlock, I will keep assisting you whenever and however I possibly can."

"Mmm..."

John sighed, his shoulders first slumping and then squaring up. He left his chair and squatted in front of Sherlock - _right_ in front of him - so he could stare his friend in the eye and give him no quarter to turn away. "Now what's all this about, hm? I thought you liked Mary." He asked.

Sherlock had not expected the move and having John so close without any warning made him...he could not classify the sensation, as though he was standing beneath a soft, warm shower. A spring rain - that was John. Extremely odd sensation to have while fully dressed but one he was reluctant to explore further with John right there, inches from him and staring up at him from his lower perch with concern. Always with John it was concern. Concern, care, kindness...

Always.

Sherlock thrust the feelings away. 'Spring showers' indeed! From what dreadful book of poetry had _that_ memory arisen? Sherlock made note to search and delete such drivel as the soonest opportunity. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

"Bollocks."

Sherlock frowned at the profanity. _Surly John remembers that I abhor such talk as the outward mark of the disorganised and dull minded? _Yet Sherlock was forced to admit that when John swore, he himself tended to pay a bit more attention to whatever came after.

"I know you, Sherlock, you're upset about something. Is it because I'm leaving soon? At the end of this week I'll be living with Mary permanently."

John was also nobody's fool, at least not with human emotions. With case evidence that was right under his nose however... "_Please_, this has nothing to do with you." _Excellent. Perfectly indignant without being dismissive of his feelings. _And then Sherlock felt suddenly guilty for having lied, even in so round-about-way. John deserved better. John always deserved better.

John had an awful lot of those things – _feelings_ - wore them on his sleeve most of the time if truth be told. Sherlock had to be careful of upsetting them or John might leave even sooner than Friday. "I'm simply trying to ensure that I have you – that you will belo - be_ present_ to assist me on this case – whatever case that may...come in." Not so good that last – a bit choppy.

John looked back at him, his expression surprisingly inscrutable. "Sherlock..."

Sherlock almost gasped as John took his hands in his own and held them. Sherlock's eyes fell, instantly locking on to the hands engulfing his own. How strong they were; a soldier's grip yet tempered by a doctor's educated touch. Warm and gentle. Then those kind fingers rubbed at his a bit and the thing that had been twisting in his guts came to life as though John had just stoked his belly. Electric fingers of heat spread up his arms and across his back, down his sides, reaching every part of him in a flat second.

His lips parted and he could not help it but gasp. A small noise, an almost not there _peep_, had escaped but enough for John to have heard it. "Sherlock, are you all right? You seem upset with me and I can't help you if I don't know what's wrong."

John was in his full good friend mode. It was the accident, Sherlock realised. He had been hurt. John was a doctor. John was his friend. So far it added up. What did not were the shivers that John's touch sent snaking over his skin.

With some difficulty Sherlock extracted his fingers from his friend's and stood up, standing and moving away from John as fast as possible but not so fast as to arouse John's instincts to follow, to help, to assess him and see if it was physical, this problem that he did not understand. "I'm fine, John, excuse me for a moment." Sherlock waved a hand over his shoulder as he escaped to the bathroom, hoping John would take the hint that he simply needed to empty his bladder and not follow. "Why don't you give Lestrade a ring as you've just suggested."

John watched him go. An irrational urge said to follow and force his friend to spill but instead he ignored it and fished his phone from his right front pocket. It went to the Inspector's voice mail. "Lestrade...John Watson. 'Was wondering if you might have any cases." He whispered hazarding a swift glance in the direction of the hallway leading to the bathroom (lest Sherlock appear out of nowhere as he often did and overhear the whole conversation), and then lent some urgency to his voice for the next bit "I've got a wide awake Sherlock on my hands with nothing to do." His inflection said _And we both know what __**that**__ bloody means! _"For God's sake call me as soon as you get this."

XXX

Lestrade watched a bit nervously as Sherlock did his bit at the scene of the dead man, the body of a pudgy, balding middle aged man bludgeoned to death and set up against a small ferry container as though a trophy left behind.

John watched also, looking for any sign of the uncharacteristically emotive behavior Sherlock had displayed at the flat earlier. There was only Sherlock in all his genius, swooping around the body like a great black bird of prey, sniffing this and probing that with his coat billowing majestically. It didn't matter how many cases came and went by the wayside, Sherlock was a sight to watch and Watson drank him in.

Although as intent on Sherlock's antics Lestrade was decidedly less patient for results from the public spectacle called Sherlock Holmes. "Anything..?" He asked.

Sherlock threw him an unmistakable look that said interruptions were neither useful nor welcome. "The blood is newly congealed." He looked around the dock where the dead man lay slumped near the end of it. Tillbury* Docks had dozens of containers stacked on the thousand meter-long dock; its one long side reaching to the fences and gates where locks and office workers sat in a two-story towers, and the dark water of the Thames on the other.

Anderson called out from his squatted seat by his little blue evidence kit. "We've already gathered that."

"I would certainly hope." Sherlock quipped. "Clotting barely an hour old in fact." Sherlock said, his eyes skimming over the nearby stacks of containers ready to be ferried out. "Your killer is a worker of the docks and is still present, Inspector." Sherlock said.

Watson instantly saw Lestrade place his fingers on the grip of his side-arm, his thumb unbuckling the clasp that held it tight in its leather holster. He bent over Sherlock and asked in a whisper. "Are you sure?"

Sherlock nodded, speaking in his near normal voice. "Why are you whispering? The other workers present came upon the dead-man moments after the attack occurred - correct?"

Lestrade nodded.

"Therefore your killer, who is not obviously among _us_ and would be unlikely to make his escape along the dock as the offices at the end overlooking the operations there would easily spot a man covered in blood. Not would anyone have given him a ride without noting the blood-stains on his clothing and hands as there is no wash station near-by for him to have removed it. It is also unlikely that a man on a docks-workers wage could afford his own vehicle and even if he did he would not be allowed to drive it passed the parking area designated near the entrance so any escape by vehicle is problematic at best. Certainly he would not, after committing murder, call for a taxi and if he _had_ done so, his clothing would still be blood soaked and the cab itself would again not have been allowed passed the parking zone - I assume your officers are already interviewing the other workers and confirming this?"

Lestrade nodded again. "Yes, on all counts."

Sherlock nodded in a way that said _I thought as much_. "Therefore the only escape, albeit temporarily, would be for the killer to hide himself among the containers nearby and hope to make an escape once..." Sherlock checked his watch, "the evening shift has arrived as it is due to in nine minutes. No doubt the killer is hoping to slip out un-noticed by the others, in the meantime he is probably taking these precious remaining few minutes to turn his stained shirt and cover-all's inside-out-" Sherlock glanced at the morbid crowd, dock representatives among them, all standing near-by. "Most of the workers over-alls show signs of considerable wear therefore our killer turning his own inside-out would help to minimise the appearance of blood and he would go nearly un-noticed unless you were directly looking for blood stains.

"I suggest Donovan make her way through the crowd to see if our man is anywhere within at present. If not then he is still wiping his hands as best he can on his socks or pants and planning on leaving them behind tucked away somewhere – that is of course _if_ he has any sense at all - and that I believe this is an impromptu crime of rage - probably over a women or some funds owed by one to the other - I then find that highly unlikely." Sherlock stood up and took a much needed breath. "No, the killer has not gotten away, he is here...somewhere."

As he listened to Sherlock's reasoning John felt the same amazement at his friend as he had that first time years ago. Oddly it seemed so much time had passed since that first case and yet not so much at all. Sherlock still seemed as young and as brilliant as ever, and he was still as thrilled as ever to be working alongside him. How his life had changed that day, meeting the curiously compelling detective for the first time and for the first time in months, not feeling like he was a bug on its back about to gasp its very last to the world.

Meeting Sherlock had brought him back to life and _life_ back into to him again. He often wondered what, if any, positive influences he might have wrought over Sherlock since that day.

Lestrade asked "So doesn't it make sense to whisper and not alert him to the fact that we've figured out he's here?"

Sherlock's brows knit together at the word _we've_ and Lestrade rolled his eyes. "Oh blast – fine - I mean now that _you've_ figured out he's here?"

"If he knows we know then he also knows an escape attempt is extremely unlikely to succeed unless he is very, very careful. This is a sloppy, disorganised thinker, Inspector. He may be so distraught over what he has done that he might even give himself up if you use your-" Sherlock waved his hand lazily trying to and finally unable to locate the correct term "Blow-hard thing."

"It's called a Blow-horn." Lestrade reminded him.

Sherlock's hand now said _Whatever! _John was enjoying the little hand-dance his friend often employed to convey messages that occasionally his mouth could find no words for. Sherlock talked with every part of his body yet no one could mistake his meaning. Whatever Sherlock was, he was never wishy-washy.

Then John's mind went back to their earlier almost conversation in the flat. _Almost never._

Watson decided his usefulness, even as he had only been Sherlock's silent partner this time, other than giving him encouraging looks whenever Sherlock had happened to look his way, which he had done a few times since arriving on the scene, had come to an end and he strolled over to the end of the dock to take in a bit of the river air. The Thames was running fast today and Watson could feel tiny drops of moisture alighting on his face.

He closed his eyes to it, letting the cool moisture bring with it relaxation. Sherlock had solved another and now it was up to Lestrade and his team to sniff the killer out from his hole.

"John!" His thoughts were interrupted by Sherlock shouting his name and then the whine of an electric engine pushed to its limits.

Shouts of "Stop right there!" erupted. It was Lestrade running after a vehicle that in no way resembled a cab. This was a large orange painted fork-lift and it was bearing down on John at full tilt, its lethal-looking double tines headed straight for his tender middle. By the time his mind had automatically calculated that he had seconds left before the thing reached him those seconds were already gone.

He had another half second to register the round eyes of a man at the controls who by his frightened expression clearly had no idea how to drive the thing, the man who was about to run the out-of-control machine right into him and send them both over the dock's edge into the icy water twenty meters below.

Only those events racing around in his whirling head were not what actually happened. What did happen was that another body hit him at full throttle, knocking the breath from his body and launching him sideways onto the concrete dock where he landed heavily. John lay there unmoving until his brain managed to re-set itself and start working once more.

After a moment he struggled to sit up and looked around. He saw Lestrade and a large mixed group of officers and dock workers bearing down on his location, all shouting and pointing at the edge of the dock. They all came to a halt en-mass and looked over to the water below.

It took John only a few seconds more to register that Sherlock was not among the crowd in question. He managed to stand, one arm pressed against his sore side and scrambled to the edge, looking below. "What happened?" He asked Lestrade. "Where's Sherlock?"

Lestrade began to take off his coat. "He's in the bloody water, that's where." John saw that the Inspector was about to take the plunge into the freezing wrath below until Anderson grabbed at his superior's arm. "Inspector, that's a _sixty foot drop_. You'll break something for sure."

John saw the suspect flapping his arms in the frothy stuff and trying to swim away to somewhere but he soon gave it up when he realised he would never last long enough in water just only above freezing to make it to any shore. So he began to call for help.

There was no sign of Sherlock or the fork-lift and John's stomach sunk like a stone, knowing that if Sherlock's clothing had somehow gotten tangled up in the machine, then he was surly headed to the bottom. And what's more –

John stripped off his jumper and stepped to the edge. Lestrade tried to hold him back. "Didn't you hear Anderson? You'll never make that jump without injury. If Sherlock's caught on that thing, he's on his way to the bottom right now if he's not there _already_." Lestrade looked around with faint hope. "Does anyone have some line!?"

The crowd spoke to each other but nothing was produced.

"Someone get a bloody life ring!" Another called. One person set off running back to the office areas of the dock. It would take minutes, John thought, _minutes and minutes_, to bring back anything that might help. Why in hell didn't they keep those things nearby?

Plus they didn't know...John wrenched his arm free. "That doesn't matter..."

Lestrade rubbed frantically at his many hours-old salt and pepper stubble, his voice shaking with false belief. "A couple of minutes and Sherlock'll have worked himself free anyway." Lestrade looked over the edge with sick eyes, the hope on his face fading even as he said the words. "Oh bloody hell!" It was a useless snarl of frustration when no Sherlock appeared.

"It'll be too late by then." John shouted back, tossing his jumper aside. "Sherlock can't swim!"**

He dove over the side.

XXX

The first thing John felt was a hard hit on bent legs. He entered the water with pointed feet in order to minimise injury to himself, hitting the surface below with a great splash and turning his ankle. Then the shock of the cold that immediately set up alarm bells in his body that screamed at him to surface and get out of the danger zone as fast as possible.

But he ignored them all. Amazing how swiftly his body returned to his training, his mind sharp and quick as he took a few seconds to hyperventilate and then a single massive breath - holding it - and then diving under the water. Once in the water his years of training as a soldier – including water survival techniques - returned in a rush.

As he kicked toward the bottom he calculated the best course. As he descended the darkness closed in but his mind showed him the way like a torch through the black. The forklift, with its size and mass, would go almost straight to the bottom. It was deep here and the Thames was running harder than usual, some inclement weather in off the Channel no doubt adding to its normally easy rhythms, but the forces pushing against his body were reduced to manageable levels if he simply kicked straight down. He should eventually be able to grope and find either the forklift itself or, even better, Sherlock who _was_ still alive. Yes, _definitely_ still very much alive.

It had been minutes now but Sherlock would have – must have – somewhere in his life at least learned to hold his breath. True he could not swim, admitting the embarrassing fact once while they had scouted out clues near the Cliffs of Dover and a kidnapping of a small town official that had occurred near there. But surely a man like Sherlock, who prided himself on knowing so much, would have taken the time to learn some water skills? John kept that thought clear in his mind as he kicked deeper and deeper. The pressure was just getting to be too much when his stretched out fingers brushed against something soft.

It felt for a moment like river weed but then he felt further down and his fingertips encountered hair and Sherlock's cold skin. Not making the mistake of any delay, John hooked his arms beneath Sherlock's limp arms and tugged. But something held his friend fast. John felt around in the near black, his fingers travelling down Sherlock's torso until he found one leg, which was turned out to be floating freely, and then the other. He grabbed a fist full of trouser-leg and pulled.

But whatever had hold of Sherlock would not yield. John felt around more, growing a bit desperate now as his own lungs were burning in their need to exhale and then expand to take in much needed oxygen. His ability to command them, to tame them, was nearing its end. In another few seconds he would need to kick to the surface, hyperventilate and try again and he did not need his doctor's skills to recognise that would be _too_ late for Sherlock.

His left hand jerking around in the numbing water finally located the possible trouble. The forklift had sunk into the silted bottom tines-first, hooking the seam of Sherlock's wool coat – a heavy garment that would have only added to the detective's descent - on its way down. John tugged and tore at it but the threads refused to give way. His thoughts screaming in frustration John felt around and pulled and pushed here and there on Sherlock's unresponsive body until he could slip him free from the water logged coat, first his right arm and then his left.

Finally, with his friend floating free, John gathered Sherlock under his arms and kicked toward the surface, praying his own screaming lungs held out until he reached it.

When he broke the surface, a line was already dangling in his face. Coughing and sputtering, he hooked the loop under Sherlock's arms, tightened it snuggly, and then watched as his friend was hauled to safety by many hands from sixty feet above.

Once John was himself again safe on the dock, he could hear the siren of an ambulance in the distance. But there was no time to lose. He crawled over to where they had laid Sherlock out on his back, pushing Lestrade who had begun CPR, out of the way. "Let me."

Pressing two fingers into the left side of Sherlock's throat, the relief at finding a slow pulse was almost made him weep with gratitude. But the pulse was of course far too slow and John leaned over Sherlock, took a couple of deep breathes to get his own O2's up, tilted Sherlock's head back, trying to ignore the cold, slack features and the blue tinged lips under his hands. He pinched Sherlock's nose shut, clamped his mouth around his friend's cold lips and breathed life-giving air into him, watching his motionless chest rise. It expanded but not nearly enough and that told him there was for certain water in Sherlock's lungs.

So John stayed that way, bent over, his own lungs crying for air, for rest, his back muscles cramping from the cold and from over-use, but still he worked, breathing, watching, breathing, watching...When someone offered to spell him off he shook his head violently, ignoring their protests and returned to the motions, which had become almost a physical life mantra of breathe, blow, breathe, blow...begging God or whoever might be on their side – if it was the Devil then bloody fine -_ Just bring him back to me. Please, oh __**please**__ bring him back!_

Moments stretched into a terrifying infinity as John continued to breathe for his friend, the one they called genius and freak, psycho and weirdo. The man who had saved London from terrorists and murderers and all those that were vile from within its dark depths, and who had asked nothing in return – And _received_ almost nothing either and suddenly John found himself silently railing against _that_ unspeakable injustice. How dare they treat this man as some sort of circus side show? How dare they gossip about him when his back was turned and scorn his difference! How _dare_ they! Sherlock's different-ness was one of the many magnificent things about him and served only to underline their own ordinary-ness. And the brilliant light in his eyes plus his glee for life made their own eyes dimmer and their mediocre spirits opaque.

Watson did not care what whispers might be making the rounds as the useless crowd of onlookers gaped. This extraordinary, brilliant,_ honorable_ man whom he counted himself privileged to know was his _friend_.

Was_ his_ friend.

Suddenly Sherlock was sputtering and then coughed up, literally, a lung full of murky water. John waved to Lestrade who quickly jumped to help John roll the prone detective onto his side where then more water came up, and then more. "Christ," Lestrade whispered, "he swallowed a lot."

John nodded. "_Breathed_ in a lot," John corrected him, himself gasping for precious, precious air. "He _drowned!_" But his tone said _what did you expect you fool!? _But Lestrade was of course, not a fool. He was a friend to Sherlock, one of the few so John let it lie_._ Instead he kept his hand on Sherlock's convulsing back as the near-drowned man brought up yet another mouth-full of killing fluid onto the concrete.

Sherlock, who could not swim, had almost drowned right in front of them all. Drowned, but did not_ die_, John reminded himself. Drowned but was _not_ dead.

The medics appeared at his side and Watson brought them up to speed on his friend's condition, watching - _observing_ - to make certain they put Sherlock on oxygen feed and spread warm blankets over him and then finally his own body, its left ankle aching terribly and he wondered if it might be broken, which body he had pushed to its physical limits, said he had done enough.

And he fainted.

XXX

When he awoke John knew instantly that he was in the hospital. He took a few deep breathes, luxuriating in the feel of clean air pouring into an aching chest. He sat up without too much difficulty and gazed down at his feet. Covered as they were by a crisp hospital sheet, he didn't need to toss it aside to know that his ankle had been professionally wrapped. Flexing his toes he knew his ankle was sprained but not broken.

He looked for and found the call button, pressing it until a nurse appeared, this one a tall young woman dressed in pale blue scrubs. "Yes Doctor Watson?"

Watson could see he was in a private room, arranged no doubt by Lestrade. "Where's my friend. I was probably brought in with him or soon after. His name is-"

"Sherlock Holmes." The young blonde woman with an easy smile said. "Yes, I know. He's next door but one. Doing well I hear."

_I'll be the judge of that, thanks._ "_How_ well?"

"I'm not his nurse, but I can get him if you like-"

The door opened and an older man entered carrying a pair of crutches. Around his neck hung a stethoscope and he was holding a white clip-board in his hand. John knew the latter two accoutrements meant _Physician_. "Doctor Watson?" The crutches were rested against the mattress and the fellow physician held out his hand. "I'm Doctor MacEwan. Mister Holmes is under my care, as are you. How are you? Foot all right? Bandages not too tight?"

John waved away the questions about himself. "It's fine and I will be. How is Sherlock?"

MacEwan nodded reassuringly, his thin comb-over of silver hair flipping this way and that. "He is recovering well thanks to you or so I hear. That was brave, what you did."

Watson let himself relax a bit though not responding to the praise. It was what Holmes would have done for him - _if_ the daft idiot could swim! Watson silently vowed to rectify that little deficiency just as soon as he could drag Sherlock into a public pool again. "What about his lungs? O2's all right? – I'm sorry I know you're the Attending and don't mean to question you it's just that-"

"Believe me, doctor,_ no_ need to apologise. I was made aware of your concerns for your friend by the Inspector. I assure you Mister Holmes will be out of here within the next twenty-four hours. We just want to be certain his lungs are completely clear before we discharge him."

"That's good news. I'd like to visit him, if he's awake."

MacEwan's genuine smile was now sprinkled with a large dose of patience. "Oh, I am sure Mister Holmes would appreciate some _distraction_." He winked. "As _we _woulda bit of peace."

Watson flashed MacEwan a knowing grin in return. "Yes, right. Sorry about that. He's not one for long stays, well, anywhere actually. Gets restless."

MacEwan handed Watson the crutches and opened the door to the hallway for him. "Please don't tire him too much."

XXX

Holmes, sitting up when Watson entered, flopped back on the bed with obvious relief that it was Watson entering his room and once Watson made himself comfortable in a stiff bedside chair, he whispered "I thought it was that nurse coming back to sponge bathe me or something. He's far too attentive for my taste."

Watson could imagine the temptation for some young thing, seeing who it was that was under their care, to take be granted that privilege if at all possible. Sherlock cut a dashing figure on anyone's radar. _There's probably a flock of nurses somewhere drawing straws to see who was lucky enough to change the bandages of London's famous son_ John mused. But then John recalled how snippy and rude Sherlock could be when confined against his will and wondered if it wasn't the other way around and the straw was for who had the _bad_ luck to nurse him. "How are you feeling?"

"Dryer, Watson, decidedly dryer." Sherlock looked down at the sheets tucked up to his middle and scratched his nose, the pronged air-way seeming to give him an itch. "Thank you by the way. I think that's the second time you've saved my life. I'm not sure when I'll be able to repay the accrued debt."

Watson reached out and covered Sherlock's fidgeting hands with his own right palm, cupping his friend's long fingers until they were still. "Let's just hope there's no more close calls like that one for a while." John said but was hard pressed to recall the first time he had saved Sherlock's life. He was about to ask when Sherlock spoke again.

"Um, John..." Sherlock looked down at the hands intertwined and then looked away, slowly pulling his hands free. _Slowly so as not to hurt my feelings,_ John thought. Sherlock really didn't like to be touched but over time his manners had improved at any rate. With a kind nod of his head John accepted the gentle reminder to keep his hands to himself and leaned back in his chair, getting comfortable.

"Now that you and Mary will be co-habiting on a permanent basis, how are we...that is to say...when will..." Sherlock cleared his throat. "I'm not sure I will be able to..."

John frowned in his efforts to both concentrate and encourage Sherlock to continue. Seeing Sherlock at a loss for words was a rare sight. "Go on, I'm listening. Be able to what?"

Sherlock swallowed and then looked over at his friend.

John was certain, absolutely certain, that Sherlock was about to cry right in front of him. So certain in fact that he almost reached out once more, almost taking Sherlock's hands in his again, like at the flat a few days ago, but then as suddenly as the expression had ghosted across Sherlock's elegant features, it quickly vanished once more and the fleeting second of 'the sad man and his comforter' was gone. When Sherlock next looked over the cool dry eyes were as calm and as contained as ever.

"I believe from now on that I shall need another assistant."

Whatever Watson thought Sherlock was about to say, it was not _that_. "What...what are you talking about?" He asked, rubbing at his lips as though to somehow rub away the unpleasantness words of protest perched on the tip of his stunned tongue. "I don't understand your meaning."

"My meaning could not be plainer. You will no longer be able to attend to me as before..." Sherlock answered but finding it difficult to address John directly, look at him eye to eye. What was it Mycroft said? _Lies are harder when you care - _in this juncture Sherlock would for certain consider sentiment a disadvantage. "...Because of being very _busy_ in wedded bliss..." Sherlock found it impossible to keep the sarcasm entirely out of his voice whenever the subject of Watson's impending nuptials arose, "with a wife and marriage and in time little clones of yourselves running around and I..." Now he found it easy to look at John. "I shall _still_ need an assistant."

John sat forward and damn that it hurt his ankle to do so. "Sherlock, I thought I made myself clear before? I will still be here to assist you whenever you need me."

Sherlock turned disbelieving eyes to him. "Will you run out in the middle of the night? Will you drive us to Brighton if necessary to chase down a criminal? Dive into another river while your wife waits at home frantic for your return or frightened that you may not? Because I do not see how you can be both my full-time assistant and Mary's full-time husband."

John looked away and then back, his guts in a bit of a twist. Steeling his voice "I'll _manage_," he said.

Sherlock addressed him straight on. "You will not be able to and you know it. This thing you feel you must be – noble and all that – is not necessary. I can never repay you for what you've done for me over these years and it is time for you to – what do people say? – let go."

Watson chewed at the inside of his bottom lip. "Look, I don't know exactly what's going on here but if you're feeling guilty or something for me having to haul you out of the river, forget about it. There's no way on this earth you're going to get rid of me that easily. You are my best friend and that's all there is to it. Mary will learn to cope. She's a strong lady."

Sherlock stared back daring John to look away first but damned if the man's military bearing reared its square-jawed stoic head and bore down on him hard. John may have been a man on the small side of life but he could intimidate the shit out of someone when he put his mind to it so it was Sherlock who finally looked away. He fiddled with the top-sheet again, folding and re-folding the edge of it. And then "Ahem – thank-you John, I'm sorry but decorum said I had to try. You know –give you an out, be a good friend and all that."

John leaned back, sighing. _God_ Sherlock could stress the baked beans out of him sometimes. "Sherlock, I love you dearly but you make me nuts, all right?" He shook his head, feeling the tension that a moment ago had thickened to the consistency of custard now melt away. "You do, you make me positively _nuts_."

XXX

When John returned to his room, it was to find Mycroft Holmes seated on the room's single chair. He was impatiently tapping the blunt end of his umbrella against the floor. "Good afternoon John."

With a cheery smile "Go to hell Mycroft," Watson said and perched himself on the edge of the bed, easing the ache of his foot.

Mycroft smiled falsely, and John figured the man was probably used to much more inventive insults, most of them probably involving his mother in a variety of unsavory situations.

The last meeting between them had been far too long. Watson intended for this one to be short and not very sweet either. "Get out."

Mycroft didn't budge, just stared at his polished three-hundred-pound shoes. "Sherlock almost died today John."

John held up a finger. "Almost, yes, _almost_, but he didn't because I saved his life."

"I suppose it's useless for me to point out to you that it was only because he was forced to save yours..._again_."

"Did I forget to tell you to piss off?"

Mycroft stared at John, his head tilted a bit, regarding him and although John had stared down many an enemy, he still found Mycroft Holmes's unblinking gaze a bit disconcerting. "And I also suppose there is no point in my asking whether or not you have given thought to our previous conversation?"

"You supposed correctly. _Good_ for you." John crawled beneath the covers. Somehow sitting around in an immodest hospital gown when you were meeting the man Sherlock insisted _was_ the British government and his sworn arch enemy, made his own bearing seem a trifle less threatening.

Mycroft stood, straightening his jacket. "Your wedding day is fast approaching John and despite the drivel you just fed to poor Sherlock – who we both know, somewhat inexplicably, trusts you - we also both know you will not be able to hold up your end of the agreement as you claim. But perhaps both our problems can be solved if we work together."

"A cold day in hell Mycroft, a cold day in hell."

"Or I could simply remove Sherlock from your life altogether. You would never see him again." Mycroft spoke it as though it were already halfway to becoming fact and John thought again that Sherlock's older brother was more snake than man and if there any sociopaths to be had, Mycroft topped the shopping list.

"Meaning..?"

"Nothing more complicated than staying away. Go and be a husband, get 'busy' with producing offspring in the name of marriage, country and all that. Attend upon Sherlock as little as is feasible."

"You mean betray him? Lie to him? Be sort of like _you_ in other words."

"Be smart." Mycroft twirled his umbrella as though even _this_ conversation was a bore. John didn't believe it for a second. About his brother, Mycroft Holmes was nothing if not obsessed. "Tell me," Mycroft asked, "how did you feel when Sherlock was laying on that dock, his face blue, his pulse almost gone, dying in your arms for having saved your life?"

"Are you losing your hearing? I think I said go to_ hell_." But John's guts were saying something very different; they were telling him that Mycroft Holmes, the frozen-blooded bastard, was closer to the truth than he wanted to admit. Sherlock had almost died yesterday. Would any of the after events have happened if Sherlock had not _needed_ to shove his assistant named John Watson out of harm's way? Would Sherlock have almost drowned _then_? Probably not.

Mycroft nodded, knowing his words had struck a chord, and John wanted to smack the smarmy off the man's freckled face. "The watch-word John is minimize. Sherlock has already given you a way through. All you have to do is change your mind. You're good at that. Just accept his terms and you and I shall not need to meet again."

"Accept his terms?"

"Let him try and find a new assistant. I'll make sure he finds the best one for his needs."

"The one _you_ choose you mean."

"Naturally since his best interests are at my heart."

"You have to _have_ one first." Watson sighed, closing his eyes. "Let's say I agree to this and I'm not saying I _will_ - _how_ am I supposed to do this?"

"It's simple: reduce, delay, cancel, excuse, apologise and then do it all over again. Leave it to me to keep my brother safe."

"When it was just _you_ in the picture he was a drug addict. He was on his way _out_ not down."

"We had a contingency plan in the works but then, well..._you_ came along."

"Too delighted to be of service then. _What _contingency plan?"

"One I hope I will not need to implement."

"You're bloody _barmy_, you are."

Mycroft gave a little snort through his nose and John wondered if it was the man's standard of laughter. Mycroft set his umbrella to rest against the chair by the bed and perched on the side of the mattress on one well-ironed trouser cheek, looking at John intently, his face for once entirely open – and about as close to human as he supposed Mycroft ever got. "Time for some enlightenment I think you have somehow missed."

Now it was John's turn to snort.

"Sherlock is in love with you."

John blinked and it took a few seconds for his brain to re-boot and produce speech. "I-I'm sorry, _what_ did you say?"

"We both know you're no genius but I imagine even you must have noticed at least some of the signs." Mycroft sighed. "Or perhaps you have not taken time to _observe_ now that you're distracted by Miss Morsten."

"Sherlock is _not_ in love with me." John said, too loudly. It was the shock. _Had_ to be the shock. "I'm about to get married." John then questioned himself as he denied it all. Not _I'm not gay_. Not _You're wrong Mycroft_. Hm. "Sherlock doesn't...he doesn't _do_ that." Do what specifically John didn't feel up to discussing at that moment as his mind was fully occupied rewinding the last two years to try and discover the things about Sherlock Mycroft was insisting he had evidently missed.

"Doctor Watson, I know my brother thinks he's a sociopath-"

"- a high functioning sociopath."

Mycroft smiled indulgently. "And he _is_ of course but even a sociopath _feels _sometimes. You've simply brought it out of him I'm afraid."

Watson closed his eyes, and then opened them. Yup, the whole nightmare was still present and accounted for. "Let's say you're right and I'm not saying you _are_ – what am I supposed to do about it?"

"Nothing more than we've discussed. I would not have mentioned this except you seemed determined to stay in Sherlock's life no matter what upset it might cause him and I'm sure you know that unrequited love can be rather painful. More so for Sherlock. You must be aware by now that Sherlock's brain doesn't function the same as yours."

"Does it anyone's? Does it _yours_?"

Still that same mystery smile and John hated him for it. "Mine is more capable of, shall we say, differentiating." He replied cryptically. "Are we agreed?"

Watson settled down in the bed, looking forward to some sleep and to erasing the elder Holmes brother's visit from his mind. He wished he had a delete key like the younger Holmes. "I'll think about it."

Mycroft gathered up his umbrella. "Doctor Watson, I work for one of the most powerful governments in the world and have been given virtually carte blanche to use its vast resources as I see fit in the face of a threat. In this instance I wish to prevent any threat upon Sherlock. You are a threat to him."

John knew he was no genius but he could recognise a warning when he heard one and as a soldier all it did was get his back way the fuck up. "I think you're the threat." Watson said and then announced. "Bollocks to you – _right_? I'm _not_ going to abandon Sherlock. My God, how _could_ I leave him to those bloody icicles you call arms and that pebble you call a heart? _This_ is your 'brotherly love'? Don't make me laugh."

Mycroft's face actually turned a bit of colour and Watson was gratified to see it. So the Great Mycroft Holmes _can _be gotten to - _interesting_.

"If you repeat these next words to anyone, especially to Sherlock, John, not only will I deny them but I'll make certain that your medical practise is shut down and you will never work as a physician again anywhere in Great Britain and probably not anywhere else either. Sherlock _has_ been, and _is_, and always_ will_ be my_ first_ concern."

"I think you're insane." John accused. "I think _you're_ a psychopath. How in God's name did someone as amazing as Sherlock come out of the same parents as _you_? I wish to hell I'd never met you. "

Mycroft smiled with the confidence of a man with the world at the push of a button and Watson was reminded of the smile the devil must have got when he convinced the world he didn't exist. "Believe me, John, when I tell you that if it meant my brother's life, I would exterminate every living soul on this island. So you see - you really haven't met _me_ yet." Mycroft tilted his head. "And it's _high functioning_, Doctor Watson. I'm a _high functioning_ psychopath." Mycroft clarified helpfully and then, believing he'd made his point, stood and gathered up his umbrella, saying his last words as he left the room. "You'll know what to do Doctor Watson. You're getting married and moving away so you're _half_ way to our solution already."

Watson watched Mycroft go and noted once again that when Mycroft walked he walked as though he was a man taking a stroll through the garden of life; a man with no specific purpose in mind.

He had suspected it before of course but Watson now knew without a crumb of doubt that impression was as false as false ever could be.

XXX

Part 2 asap

*I've no idea if Lestrade would be going so far from his usual turf to investigate a murder (I'm guessing probably not), but for the sake of this story, let's say he is.

**Not sure if Sherlock can or cannot swim but for the sake of this story...he can't!


	2. Chapter 2

The Dancing Man Part 2

By GE Waldo

**Rating**: Mature.

**Pairing**: John/Mary and Sherlock/OMC (sort of), and eventually Johnlock but probably nothing especially sexually graphic. Take warning though just in case!

**Summary**: Mycroft and John square off on a quest to keep Sherlock safe from what Mycroft see's as his brother's reckless judgement under what he decides is John Watson's ineffectual assistance, which he believes is endangering his brother's life. Plus two murder cases that not only challenge Sherlock's incredible abilities but pushes him to his mental limits. A continuation of **The Glass Heart**. (Slightly AU (In this universe Irene Adler and Moriarty are dead for sure and the story is set during a time of limbo _after_ Sherlock is back from the dead but _before_ Watson and Mary's wedding. **Duration**: several months at least)).

**Disclaimer**: Not mine but a fantasy never hurt anyone.

XXX

I have always had a thing for Sherlock Holmes (the fictional man and the actors (Jeremy Brett and B. Cumberbatch – both wonderful actors and gorgeous men!), who have portrayed him). I also love the name! So I looked up some etymology on SHERLOCK and found this:

"William S. Baring-Gould's Annotated Sherlock Holmes has this to say:

The name Sherlock ... comes from the Irish scorlóz - Shearlock or Sherloch, which is derived from searlóz - Scurloch, Shirloch, or Sherloch, which is in turn the Gaelic version of the Anglo-Saxon scortlog, literally "short-lock," that is, one with shorn locks. [The Sherlock family] had settled in Ireland before the beginning of the thirteenth century, and soon became very widespread...*

Sherlockian scholars, on the other hand, have speculated that Holmes was perhaps named for the famous Bishop Thomas Sherlock, 1678-1761, or his father, William Sherlock, 1641-1707, who became Dean of St. Paul's and the author of A Practical Discourse Concerning Death.

You might think that A Practical Discourse Concerning Death** would be the primest book of all to a Holmes."

"There's a lot of disagreement, but the most common explanation is that Arthur Conan Doyle sometimes played cricket with someone named Sherlock, and that he was an admirer of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes."

*According to " " in the age of the 13th century (part of the Middle Ages), Sherlock Holmes's wavy locks - as they appear in the BBC Sherlock - would be considered short as, in general the shortest hair style for a man would have been the "pageboy" cut; hair worn to below the ears and turned in at the ends.

**It's on my hard drive and, after a cursory examination, appears to be a lengthy religious text about Christian salvation etc. GE Waldo

SHERLOCKSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHOLMES

Martha Hudson, her hair done up to perfection, knocked and then let herself in. Her eyes being almost as observant as Sherlock's, she noted it right away. "Why Sherlock, you've removed John's chair."

Sherlock did not look away from his microscope. "He no longer uses it."

"But you've _removed_ it." She said with grand disapproval, turning her head this way and that just to see if perhaps he had shoved it into a shadowed corner or wedged it in the narrow hallway.

Sherlock continued to study the microbes at the end of the eyepiece, the kitchen in a disarray of beakers and bowls. "The absence of the chair neutralizes the absence of its former occupant."

With heavy commiseration - "Oh...you miss him." She said her eyes limpid with sympathy.

Sherlock abandoned his scraping and looked at her, his expression entirely affronted by the idea he was caught up in that particular sentiment. "That is not what I meant. Why do you think _that's_ what's I meant? I didn't mean _that_ at all, Martha. Why in the world would you think I meant _that?"_

His landlady wandered to the kitchen to survey with old English dignity the slowly accumulating mess on the counters and on the table, reaching out one hand to move some of it and then changing her mind, not knowing where to begin or what unholy germs might be present on any of its surfaces. "I'm not _blind_ Sherlock, you may think me an old fool but I can see when someone is hurting. You miss John. It's obvious."

He left the microscope and moved to his chair, which he had not shifted at all from _its_ well set place, and took up a newspaper. It was yesterday's news but he unfolded it with an angry snap of his wrist, burying his nose in it. "That is preposterous. "Obvious"!" He repeated the word as though it tasted bad on his tongue. "It is not _"obvious"_ – _nothing_ about me is _"obvious"._ I lived alone for many years before I met John as you well know."

"Yes, and _don't_ I know it." She said archly, "alone and _lonely_." She came to stand over him, her eyes replete with the knowledge of years, not only the years she had known him but her own advanced years of life. She had seen seventy of them, and had accumulated an abundance of life experiences she knew were still waiting for Sherlock, not all of them good. This she said with her eyes, but with her mouth she instead gently scolded him. "Don't try and tell _me_ how fine you were, I lived underneath you for all those years, young man, and I know depression when I see it, I could well tell you about my sister-"

From behind the newsprint and heavily sarcastic - "-_please_ restrain yourself."

Ignoring his rudeness, by now an ingrained habit, she continued without missing a beat. "She was devastated after that Nasty Divorce," spoken as though her sister's experience had attained all the markings of an epic among the ages. "And I'm telling you when-ever you weren't on a case, you did nothing but lie around moping and smoking the spliff - and without offering _me_ any I'd like to remind you - that is of course when you weren't blowing things up in my kitchen."

"_My_ kitchen, Misses Hudson, I do pay rent." He turned the page noisily, trying to drown her out which she studiously ignored.

"-not hardly enough I'm sure." She replied without blinking an eyelash. "Or those weird smelling _people_ coming around at all hours of the night, it was enough to make me despair of you." Misses Hudson sat down on the chair's wide arm-rest and gripped his forearm kindly in her thinning, blue-veined left hand. "Oh Sherlock, I _hate_ to see you up here alone every day – it isn't _healthy_. Why don't you find yourself a nice young man and settle _down_? Lord knows there were enough of them over the years at your knocker with their tongues hanging out. My sister's best friend has a son about your age and I'm almost certain he's gay – he wears gallons of cologne and those tight jeans and silk shirts like you sometimes do."

This earned her an exceptionally dark frown from her tenant. "I have _never_ worn gallons of cologne - or _any_ for that matter. It irritates my throat as you well know."

But Martha ignored his protestations with a practised ear. "Plus he's blonde like John - and _single_ she says. I'm sure there are lots of fellows like that in London - you're a handsome boy, Sherlock, you'd have your _pick_ really. Perhaps you could put an advertisement in The Standard? You know - something like '_Good-looking gay man seeking good looking gay man; must be blonde and short_'. I'm sure there are _hundreds_ of them."

"Misses Hudson..."

"But you not interested in any _one_ of them and why not _I'd_ like to know..."

"Misses _Hudson_..."

"The nice ones only stopped coming 'round when John moved in."

Sherlock's scant reserve of patience was now entirely depleted. "Misses _Hudson!"_

"I know, I know, it's time I went so here I go." She sighed wearily over her most tenacious tenant and walked to the door in low, un-fashionable heels. "I wish you'd think about it at least and do try _not_ to destroy the flat when I'm out today."

Once she was gone, Sherlock dialed his phone and spoke immediately when the party in question answered. "John - are you about finished your morning domestic ritual, I'd like you to meet me at the Yard."

John answered his voice a stir of puzzle. "Sherlock, why aren't you texting me? You _always_ text me, and you insist I always text _you_."

Sherlock felt his heart speed up. He'd forgotten that basic rule-of-thumb between them, and now had to wonder why in the world he'd been set on it at the beginning. It took only seconds for his brain to come up with the answer – which he immediately deleted - and only another few seconds to invent a plausible lie. "Occasionally one must resort to conventional means of getting one's point across. Of late when you are _busy_" – the quotes he placed around the word were thick with the insinuation that whatever John was getting busy with could not possibly be as important as attending to a crime scene with his former genius detective flat-mate, "you ignore my texts. Meet me at the Yard in half an hour."

XXX

"The victims all seem to have been left where they fell and yet this is clearly a connected series of killings."

"You mean a serial killer." Lestrade corrected.

Sherlock answered with barely restrained sarcasm. "_Series_, so yes _serial_ – and..."

Lestrade was standing over his shoulder. "And what?"

"Each body landed _seemingly_ as it fell. That is a bit sloppy. Serial killers tend to enjoy posing their victims, their habits also run to ground; that is they become used to killing in the same fashion again and again with little variation because it provided them with so much satisfaction the first time. Oh if _only_ I could have seen the bodies as they were before Anderson and his band of merry idiots got to them."

Tired of the complaint - "I'm on thin ground as it is Sherlock, with the commissioner." Lestrade reminded him. "So you think these are connected - I mean other than the fact we have three dead bodies on our hands?"

Sherlock shook his head. "According to your information the victims were not known to each other. One was a prostitute who was HIV positive and a drug addict and by the look of his physical condition nearing his last gasp among the living, two had spent time in jail for crimes varying from armed robbery to assault."

"They were all criminals Sherlock, that's a connection of a sort, if you ask me." Lestrade said.

Sherlock cocked an eyebrow in acknowledgment. He thrust the photos away from himself. "That might be a connection of significance or merely our killer hunting among the vulnerable. Most serial killers tend to choose their victims from among the marginalized of society, the potential victims easily accessible and easily trusting if such trust might lead to a free hit or the opportunity for what they hope is an easy few pounds."

Watson listened to the two men discuss the case and took up the photos, turning them which way and that, trying to see in the disposed bodies what the two men had seen or at least what Sherlock saw. After a moment Sherlock noted John's perusal. "There is little more the photographs can tell us John."

"What about the crime scene at least? Take a look around?" Watson felt a bit out-of-place as he only joined the investigation after the first several days, doing his best to parry Sherlock's texts for him to join them. Mary had been fine with it but his mind continued to circle Mycroft's veiled warnings to stay away from Sherlock, to "protect him" by doing so and it was wrestling with his conscience.

"Only the last two," Lestrade answered. "In the Yard's infinite wisdom I'm being pressured to limit Sherlock's access again."

Sherlock, although relieved to be out of the flat after several days of blocking by Lestrade's idiot Commissioner, still felt his dignity had never been more insulted, adding "I am supposed to apply for an identity tag for _god's_ sake."

"Did you?" Watson could well imagine Sherlock Holmes balking at such a requirement because undoubtedly in the detective's mind he was _**Sherlock Holmes**_ and everybody in London and their two cats ought to recognise _**Him**_ by now.

Sherlock glanced at Watson and then away. "I refuse to clutter myself with trivialities." Which was Sherlock's way of saying that he couldn't be bothered to comply.

Watson saw Lestrade rub at his eyes with a finger and thumb. Lestrade then sighed heavily. Clearly the weight of Holmes refusal to comply even with the smallest of compromises was giving him a fresh headache.

Watson turned his attention back to the photographs laying them out, side by side. "Sherlock, did you notice that this one's arm seems to be pointing?"

Sherlock snatched the photo up and, using his tiny pocket magnifying glass, took another look. He did the same to the other two. "Their limbs are splayed out in various directions John; one could imagine them leading us to all points on the compass if we were so inclined."

John thought the dismissive nature of the comment too quick for Sherlock. He stared at him. "Are you all right?"

"Certainly," Sherlock stared back defiantly and Watson knew better than to question him on it - at least not in Lestrade's office right that minute.

"And yet I've just pointed out that there might be a clue in the photographs and therefore at the crime scene..."

Sherlock glanced over at him, his face almost unreadable but John did see a flash of something - _another _something indecipherable - but again decided not to ask. He was supposed to be _not_ engaging with his friend and it left a bitter taste in his mouth. Mycroft's warnings scooted across his thoughts constantly now - _the manipulative bastard! _"_Minimise, reduce, excuse...keep him safe."_ Watson stood, pushing his chair back. "Um, if that's all you need for me, I have some things to pick up."

"You are o-of substantial use," Sherlock blurted and then composed himself. "I could use your help at the third crime scene..." Sherlock looked at Lestrade with his eyebrows on the rise, "if the Inspector...?"

Lestrade frowned, balancing his need for Sherlock against the Commissioner's steely eyes currently focused on Lestrade's own precarious career and his lack of any leads to the brutal murder of three street people. "Now that the police are done with the crime scene there's nothing that says you can't have a look now, is there?" He said. "Even without the name tag. It _is_ a public place."

Sherlock jumped up and grabbed his coat. "A very good point Inspector. Come Watson, bring the photos and let us attend to the third crime scene."

Watson watched his friend exit and Lestrade frowned at Watson when he did not move to follow. "Everything all right Doctor?"

Watson looked over at him, blinking as his mind to a moment to make itself up. Despite Mycroft's warnings that his presence beside Sherlock was not conducive to the detective's long term health, there seemed little danger in helping him investigate a couple of bare squares of pavement. "Sure, fine, everything's good."

The damn groceries could wait.

XXX

The crime photos had been gruesome enough; the actual scene was more so even with the body having been removed days before. The blood which had not yet been washed away by the investigators team or by rain was still evident, John noted, and had dried to a deep rusted brown. Blood never looked like blood once it dried. More like a primer coating for a tin shed and might easily fool an untrained eye. But he had seen enough in his life that it was unmistakable.

The body had been found sprawled nearby to the rear wall of a warehouse. Garbage was piled about although the police forensic people had already sorted through it, carting away anything that might prove enlightening.

"Let me see the photo." Sherlock demanded.

Watson handed it to him and Sherlock spent a moment holding it up against the actual pavement and warehouse wall, to determine exactly where the body had lay. Sherlock pointed east along the wall itself. "_If _pointing is indeed what the body was supposed to convey, the victim was pointing in that direction."

Watson's anticipation of a bit of crime detecting was dashed a bit. There was little else in that direction but the corner of the warehouse they were examining with only more wall and dirty pavement beyond.

Sherlock noted his friend's fallen countenance. "Do not be so downhearted yet, Watson. We are here not merely to look but to _observe_."

Watson followed Sherlock as he walked slowly along the wall. Every-so-often Watson would hold out his palm and stroke this spot or that, as though willing the dirty masonry to voice its secrets. But as always, it was only Sherlock it spoke to, and he hadn't lifted a finger. They pair only stopped when there was no-where else to walk and the wall on their left ended to a right angle turn.

Sherlock stood still for a few seconds and then he held up his finger, turning his head to Watson and sniffing the air. "Do you smell it?"

Watson sniffed. There was a faint odor of cooking in the air. "Is that-?"

"Grease – yes Watson." Sherlock looked excited. He took several paces to his right and lay his head against the cool bricks, then he stepped back, bent down and scraped together some dirt and dust. "Watson," he admonished "help."

Watson watched his friend gathering dirt. "If you've suddenly caught a tidy bug I should have left you at home."

Sherlock growled at his friend's slowness, stood back from the wall before him and threw the dirt at it. John could immediately see that some of it clung. He understood and began to scrape up as much as he was able. Both of them stood there for some minutes sweeping dirt into their hands and then tossing it at the wall where some of it clung and the rest rained down in a thick dust cloud. Watson knew they looked like a couple of kids up to no good and hoped no one walked by.

"I think that is sufficient John." Sherlock said and took a step back to survey the result, wiping his hands together to rid them of leftover grit. John noticed that their dirt toss had left Sherlock's hair with a light coating of reddish dust. They were both a bit of a mess.

John followed suit and stepped back. His mouth gapped open. "What the hell is it?"

Sherlock looked aside to his friend, his eyes shining with anticipation. "Take a picture John. It is a game begun by a killer and we've just been invited to play."

XXX

Sherlock stuck the image on the phone beneath Greg Lestrade's nose. "I need to see the other crime scenes again." He announced.

Lestrade frowned look at the picture on John's phone and shrugged. It was a stick figure with a simple circle for a head. Both of the legs were drawn curving to the left of the torso and both arms raised above the head and curving to the right. "Graffiti...kids..."

Sherlock stopped himself from rolling his eyes half way through the action. Watson was proud. "It is not graffiti Inspector. A graffiti artist would use a visible medium; he would want his or her so-called art to be noticed by the public and the police in particular. This –shall we say- artist wants only _my_ attention – and perhaps that of Scotland Yard. A symbol of a dancing stick figure – a dancing man - painted in grease so only someone with an observant eye would discern it was there and know how to make it visible."

Lestrade wasn't convinced. "And you think this dancing man is some sort of clue a serial killer left behind."

"Of course."

"Holmes, we already know the murders are probably connected, probably done by the same killer. This figure was painted is fifty yards from the body."

"It's connected." Sherlock sounded absolute in his opinion.

Lestrade shrugged. "If you say so, go ahead and investigate it – you've got my blessing – only the department has to stick to what we have, for now. A figure in grease on a wall nowhere near the victim is hardly evidence we can use, so you'll have to follow up on your own. Go chase down your grease man."

"_Dancing_ man," Sherlock corrected him, "because for certain there will be two more figures in grease at the other crime scenes."

"Again, if you say so." Lestrade nodded, doubtful of the grease stain vaguely shaped like a man was anything more than a kid's sloppy wall art and he could not afford to put his career on the line because of Sherlock's theory.

Sherlock seemed not quite satisfied yet. "Do I now have access to the third victim's file and not just the photographs?"

Lestrade considered, scratching his trimmed head of salt and pepper hair. He had warm brown but tired looking eyes and his cockney accent, Watson had noticed, grew thicker by the time the shadows grew long on the street, and outside dusk was only a few short hours away now. "I'm on thin ice with the Commissioner as it is so when you come back with something more than one grease stain that sort of resembles a stick figure, I'll consider it. You can pick up the addresses for the other crime scenes from Sally and copies of the reports. Go." There was no mistaking the dismissal in his voice and Watson nodded his own thanks as Sherlock swept dramatically from the room.

Sherlock obtained the needed information from a scowling Sergeant Sally Donovan, and dragged Watson out into the street. Hailing a cab they were on their way to where the first victim had met his end. Sherlock paid little attention to the actual scene itself as it was more than a week old and now trodden by dozens of officer's boots.

Once more the photo of the dead man was measured against the actual location of death. Sherlock indicated two possible areas nearby to check out and took the one closest to him, some twenty meters down from where the body had lay.

Watson wandered over to a collection of blue dust bins next to the wall Sherlock was resting the side of his face against and sniffing like a hound.

Not wanting to sniff anything in a garbage strewn alleyway, Watson decided to check out the bins themselves. They were large and square and all sitting in even rows but one. It was unlikely the killer would be that obvious he thought but the garbage collection in the area had not come around yet and the bins were still full to bursting with cardboard and all varieties of dry rubbish. Watson noted, among the musty smells of damp paper product another, stronger odor. "Sherlock..."

He pressed palms up against the bin in question and pushed it. It took both his and Sherlock's combined strength to shift it.

Sherlock brought out of his pocket a bag of confetti. "Here." He said thrusting it into his hand. "Spread it evenly as you can over the entire area that was under the bin."

Watson stared at the detective. "Where in the blazes did you find a moment to pick up confetti?"

Sherlock frowned at the question. "We were in an office, Watson, with hole-punches lying on almost every desk- extrapolate."

Watson didn't answer. Sherlock had emptied them into his pockets. "That's thinking on your feet."

"Yes." Sherlock acknowledged.

Sherlock waved his hand toward the area in question and then took up a large stiff square of cardboard and nodded to Watson to begin. As John spread the confetti he knew Sherlock's intention was to fan away the loose bits at appropriate intervals. After a moment of sprinkling and waving of the make-shift fan, Sherlock signaled for him to stop. "Enough."

Watson knew what to do next. He took his phone and snapped a series of photos of the marks on the ground while Sherlock made quick-fire comments about its shape and the configuration of the stick figures limbs. "You see, Watson, these limbs are different from the other symbol. Those were stretched out at right angles to the torso but this one, only two arms are out, the legs are held closer to the body. I suspect a code. Impossible to tell at this juncture but we will soon see about our next crime scene." He sounded thrilled. To Sherlock, a good bloody serial killer was like Christmas morning.

XXX

Back at the flat, Sherlock studied the photographs he had loaded onto his computer from Watson's phone, having printed up several copies of each. "Each figure is just different enough that it is clearly a pattern, even after only three figures."

"Letters of the alphabet?" Watson hazarded as he poured boiling water into an old brown tea-pot and left it on the worktop to steep.

Sherlock shook his head but Watson knew he had not meant necessarily no. "Difficult to tell at this juncture...each figure might represent a word or a letter or even a phrase. We need more murders."

"Of course you mean more _c-l-u-e-s_." Watson encouraged.

Irritated by Watson's attempt to modify his meaning, Sherlock turned his head toward his friend. "Why would our killer leave clues without first committing the murder?" He asked reasonably. "He is after all a _killer_."

"He or she."

Sherlock tilted his head this way and that. "The killer is possibly but unlikely to be a woman. These are violent crimes with a great deal of blood-letting. As well moving or posing the bodies afterward takes a degree of physical strength."

Watson sighed, sitting down in Sherlock's chair because his had disappeared. He wondered if it was upstairs. "Are we about done for today? I need to get home."

Sherlock did not lift his eyes from the photographs. "You just made tea."

"That's for you." Watson said and stood up. He had contemplated just sharing tea and doing some hanging around. There was potential for this investigation to get dangerous if Sherlock were indeed hunting a serial killer who was leaving clues for him or the police, so didn't it make more sense to spend _more_ time with Sherlock rather than less? Didn't Mycroft realise Sherlock needed protection? But then the resourceful elder Holmes would be seeing to that wouldn't he? Wondering if there was a long black car parked somewhere nearby Watson wandered to the window and looked out. There wasn't.

He was a soldier. He could handle himself in a fight, carried a gun and was a crack shot. He was ideal as Sherlock's protector. But then Mycroft's point was never than he couldn't protect Sherlock, it was that Sherlock took risks in order to protect _him_. Had left the country for two years to do so, had almost drowned last week doing so. "Er, how are your lungs?"

At that Sherlock looked up from the photographs. "They're fine John." His eyebrows came together the way they did when he suspected something beneath the words spoken. "Why? Is my brother all worried? Has he been harassing you again?"

"No, no. Not at all."

"You're a _terrible_ liar John." Spoken with genuine affection and Watson's heart began to ache. "Don't worry, I'll speak to Mycroft. I know how to call off my big _incredibly annoying_ brother."

Watson shook his head, smiling. "I'm sure he just wants what's best for you."

At that Sherlock snorted. "Mycroft has no idea what's best for me."

Watson somehow felt that wasn't entirely true. "How did this sibling rivalry get started anyway?" It was fascinating really watching the two of them verbally spar which on rare occasions had almost become physical. No actual blood had ever been drawn one from the other yet but Sherlock had tossed Mycroft out of his apartment on more than one occasion with a few well places hand holds and Mycroft had always at that point left peaceably enough.

But he always came back. Two brilliant brothers at odds, each fighting crime in their own way, each utilizing their gifted brains to the advantage of Queen and Country and yet, Watson felt sure, each for his own agenda as well. Certainly Sherlock did it for the thrill of the hunt and because without his detecting he felt, perhaps, incomplete? Useless maybe? _Bored_. Almost everything bored Sherlock. He shied away from most human contact, he distained emotions, he hardly ate. He hardly _slept_.

What he did do was deduce and that he did better than anyone John had ever met or knew of. Some days though it seemed to John that it could not possibly be enough for a satisfying life. How could Sherlock not feel lonely when he was surrounded by people and yet unwilling to interact with them except on a rudimentary basis?

All except for three. Lestrade because that was where Sherlock had to go to get the cases he worked on. John supposed, after a few years, Sherlock and the Detective Inspector had become more or less friends, and yet they never shared a meal or met for a beer or hardly spoke outside of The Work.

Sherlock had Martha because she had made herself sort of a surrogate mother to him in the absence of his own, living or not, also perhaps because Martha understood Sherlock well enough to know when to leave him alone and when not to. Sherlock went to Molly sometimes because that's who he _had _to go to for his body parts but never saw her outside of the Bart's unless John arranged something in a group, and then Sherlock only attended when John _made_ him go.

Which thought suddenly and directly lead to another: _Why_ did Sherlock agree to going to these functions when he didn't want to? Who in their right mind would ever expect Sherlock Holmes, one of if not_ the_ most stubborn, self determining men in the United Kingdom, to _agree_ to attend a party when he hated them?

_Because he cares for you._

Mycroft's words.

_Fuck!_ And so of course it was brought all the way around and back to himself. John knew he was Sherlock's only real friend, only close friend who listened to him and actually had begun to change for the better - a bit - John thought, because of his influence. _Sherlock more than appreciates me,_ John thought, _he actually likes me_.

_Sherlock is in love with you._

Once again Mycroft's words returned with had seemed to be insisting that Sherlock would continue to get hurt because he would do anything to protect John, including forfeit his own life.

Two years Sherlock had been gone. Two _years_ to dismantle Moriarty's web of crime lords. Faked his own death, accepted the label of a fraud, and left the country. John was suddenly overwhelmed with a need to know what went on during those two years Sherlock was on the continent and separated from everything he knew and valued.

_Sherlock sacrificed everything for my safety._ And for the hope of returning to rebuild his own reputation and life.

_Sherlock is in love with you._

_Of all the complicated bloody shit..._ Which would hurt him worse, John wondered, leaving Sherlock alone or staying by his side? "Sherlock..."

Sherlock was deep in contemplation over the photographs. "Mmm? Yes John?"

Watson closed his eyes to stop the water from forming there and to steady his hart for what he had to say. And do. "Um, look, I have to go. Mary and I are planning a little trip abroad for a while. I just wanted to let you know now so you can, you know, maybe call in someone to help you while I'm away." _Liar_.

"Abroad?" The way Sherlock repeated the word the very idea seemed ludicrous. "_Abroad_? We are in the middle of a case – the beginning of one in fact and you waited until _now_ to tell me you're taking a vacation?"

Watson spread his hands. "Sorry. Mary insists. I guess I didn't know how to tell you."

"How long?"

John hadn't worked that out yet. In fact he hadn't yet worked out how he was going to manage to stay in country and fool Sherlock into believing he wasn't. "Um - a few weeks. Canada, maybe parts of the United states...we want to see a bit of the world before we settle down."

Sherlock pursed his lips. "I see."

It was said with such a resounding hurt but trying to disguise itself as perfect control that John almost winced.

"When are you leaving?"

"After the weekend. I can help you until then, I mean a few hours a day at least, after work that is."

Sherlock turned his attention back to photographs. "Well, enjoy your trip John." Now it was naked undisguised disapproval and hurt. "You need not worry about assisting me. I'm sure Molly or Teresa will be willing. Teresa most especially, she has entertained the idea of taking over your bedroom."

John nodded. Teresa was one of Sherlock's many homeless helpers. John had seen her on more than once occasion give Sherlock a good going over with her eyes and he was certain it wasn't because she fancied his coat. "Really? Teresa?"

Sherlock looked at him with a scolding countenance. "Why_ not_ Teresa?"

Watson worried his hair a bit. "Well, nothing really only that, I mean other than she's one of your spies you...you hardly know her."

Sherlock said, his voice dripping with irony. "I hardly knew_ you_." He turned his attention back to his work at hand and said with finality. "Goodbye John. Enjoy your time "abroad"."

John recognised the bunny quotes around the word _abroad_ with a sinking heart. Sherlock hadn't bought into the lie at all. _Of course he didn't._ John scolded himself for his cowardice. _Bloody awful lie, Doctor Watson. Did you forget that you're getting married in a few weeks? Is that all you could come up with? _"Sherlock...look...um...Sherlock?"

Sherlock was staring at his booting up computer monitor, his face as blank as the screen. _I will ring up Molly and arrange some experiments on how the various positions into which a body might fall when the victim is murdered face to face. That should tell me to what degree our killer needed to maneuver his victim post-mortem. I will require two days to complete the tests. _Sherlock wondered how many cadavers Molly had on hand.

"Sherlock...Sherlock? - _Sherlock_!"

He turned to look and it was John speaking to him from the entrance way to the sitting room. _Why is John still here? Wasn't he supposed to have gone by now? _Momentarily setting aside the details of his planned experiment Sherlock finally managed to gather enough present awareness to form a word. "What?"

"I said goodbye." John said.

Sherlock frowned a bit. Of course...goodbye, friends said hello and goodbye. His not-friends-but-acquaintances mostly said goodbye, usually with no small degree of finality. John-who-had-been-a-friend-but-was-now-not-a-friend was leaving and he was never coming back. Three years John had stayed with only a few blips of furious-and-will-probably-never-speak-to-him-again-Johns along the way. Three years - far longer than he had expected really. Most of his acquaintance-ships had not lasted over a week.

"Yes," Sherlock answered. "Goodbye John." He said.

With no small degree of finality.

XXX

"I'm sorry for this, Misses Hudson. We're just a bit worried."

Martha nodded herself anxious to know what was going on with her two boys. She worried one of her soft curls into a frizz. "Well, the door should be open. Sherlock never locks it, you know. I wish he would." Misses Hudson said as she watched Molly ascend the stairs.

Molly found the door unlocked and entered. The flat was quiet. One look told her the kitchen was empty, and the bathroom. No one was using John's bedroom which was up another short flight of stairs so she didn't need to check it.

So there was only Sherlock's bedroom left. Molly had never been in Sherlock's bedroom before.

The door was shut. Her palms were suddenly sweaty and her heart was beating faster. She felt almost...afraid. Feeling silly for feeling scared she turned the knob and swung it wide.

Sherlock was there, sprawled out on the bed in his pajama bottoms and his blue dressing gown, the tie undone, the thin material wide open and doing nothing to conceal the taut flesh underneath. She held her breath. Molly had never seen Sherlock is such a state of undress before either.

Biting her lip and feeling very much like an unwelcomed voyeur she crept over to the messy bed, not wanting to startle him awake. He had his head flung back and turned away from her, exposing the long, ivory neck.

Molly stared, frozen in place at the sight of so much of Sherlock exposed to her eyes. Her eyes lingered, hungry and getting their fill while they had this rare chance to see him, to drink in what loveliness lay beneath the dark suits he wore and the heavy coat and long scarf.

Sherlock's skin was so..._white_. Everywhere he was slim and shapely; the long muscles; the delicate flesh between his throat and his chest with its faint dusting of dark hair, _everywhere_ he was...so wonderfully _white_. Sometimes she had a hard time believing he was fully human. With his ivory flesh and his mess of dark curls and his silver-blue eyes he was like some finely made spirit visiting from the next world and as so seemed to move through this one untouched by it.

Physically she found him so bloody _beautiful _thatat times it made her heart ache and she hated herself for it because despite knowing how futile it was she still loved him. She had even listened to John's gentle counselling of her over the years to put Sherlock out of her mind, to find someone else, someone who deserved her and who would treat her with love and respect and how she had _tried_ – Christ tried so_ hard_ - to follow that counsel – and so had found someone, and then another, and then another and another, all of them, each within weeks, becoming a dim and wholly inferior replica of the man she actually wanted. And with none of them had she discovered a way to fall in love no matter how hard she worked at it. No matter how many times she smiled and accepted their sentiments of affection and respect, they all became wind and talking mouths and grasping fingers that left her mute inside and cold in her feminine parts.

And even when she swallowed her pride and months after she'd met him, slipping into an adult store and purchasing a toy and then trying it out that same night, bringing herself to climax with her own hand but with her eyes closed so she could imagine it was _him_; _his _silky mouth and _his_ elegant hands caressing her body and _his_ muscles rippling across his back beneath her clutching fingers – even her fingers lovingloving_loving_ him and _him_ penetrating her over and over while moaning in her ear as he came _because_ of her and _for_ her and finally-finally-God-_finally!_ for _their_ secret love brought to bear for _them_ and only _them_, and later, for the whole world...

But the shameful instrument of her night-time fantasy had left her so empty that the next morning she threw away the offending object and wept for a whole day.

Molly stole the precious moment to observe him without his knowing, without his penetrating, knowing eyes mocking her for it, caressing his flesh with her own hopeless eyes of longing, at once ashamed and yet feeling she deserved at last this much of him, only _this_ much should not be an imposition. _God_ she loved him.

Her eyes fell away from his sleeping body because she knew for a certainty that he did not return her unspoken sentiments in any way. Not even when she let herself fantasize that yes, perhaps he might someday love her back; and that fantasy would turn to hope whenever he might flash her one fleeting expression of kindness or thank her for her help – which he almost never did.

But then he would open his mouth and say something thoughtless or even cruel and her tiny moon of hope would vanish with a _pop_ – just gone. Just like_ that_. Torn violently away; out of existence once more and Molly would be sorely reminded that he was indeed very human and just as flawed as any man. At times, despite his brilliance she'd remember that Sherlock was _more_ flawed than most and her heart's burden of loving him would ease for a time.

Molly let the fantasies drift away from her once more and with exactly two fingers she poked his shoulder which that did the trick because he groaned and turned his head, his eyes opening, but not focussing for a moment.

And then he turned his head far enough her way to recognise her and speak. "Molly..?" Then he sat up and clutched at his head, swinging his legs over the side. She took two steps away from the bed to give him more room, knowing he would probably not like her standing so close.

Only then did she notice the almost empty bottle of Scotch sitting on the floor by the bed and the empty glass beside it lying on its side. "Have you been drinking?" She asked and then felt rather stupid because it was obvious. In the small room the stink of alcohol was pungent, and his breath smelled of it.

Sherlock, still clutching at his head, managed to pull his dressing gown across his chest with one trembling hand while his other did not leave off rubbing at his eyes. He gestured to the bottle. "Empty bottle..." He whispered, sounding as though even speech hurt, "outrageously hung-over Sherlock - extrapolate."

Molly nodded, deciding to ignore his feeble attempt at mocking her slowness. It was not a new exchange for either of them. "You didn't show up today." She said by way of explanation as to why she was in his bedroom un-invited while he was also in it and half naked. "And you weren't answering your phone and neither is John. We were worried."

"Who's 'we'?" He whispered, holding his head in vise-like fingers, his torso bent over like a question mark.

She imagined his guts were churning up a torturous brine of stomach acid and alcohol. "Everyone."

"Ah." Sherlock said the word replete with a full understanding of something that she had somehow entirely missed. "You and Misses Hudson then." He finished.

She sensed her well worn sympathy swelling up for him and feeling like the well-worn fool that she was because of it added "And John of course."

"Oh?" He asked, finally looking at her. "So you spoke to him this morning?"

Had she heard some faint hope in the question? she wondered, because he sounded surprised. "Well, no, but of course he would be worried." She kicked at the bottle with the toe of her shoe. "Especially if you've been drinking this much."

"It's nobody's business what I've been doing." _John_...Delete. No, not delete - _binned_. Recycled, shunted from the Working Drive and into Compressed Storage.

John had gone away and it didn't matter where.

In his Memory Palace he easily shifted the associated memories of John around, but there were so many, and so intricately woven in with so many other memories and feelings and sensations and experiences, many pleasant, enjoyable, even approaching something akin to happy, that he could not decide how to bring them together into one room. Plus many of them had settled in his chest and though some of those were good memories, they were re-designating it into a cache of aching and a room of sadness.

Delete was impossible.

Molly was staring at him as he stared at the floor and she had the sneaky suspicion that what she'd said about John he hadn't actually believed. Or maybe he just didn't care. He seemed upset and yet hadn't even looked up or blinked at her. "Can I get you anything?" She asked.

He shook his head. "No. I believe I shall have to put off my cadaver experiments until tomorrow Molly." He stood - too fast - swaying a bit and then almost toppling over. She reached to steady him and he recoiled from her touch like he had been stung. "I'm fine." He snapped and then perhaps reasoning that he was acting like an ungrateful ass, added "Thank-you Molly." He then shook his head as though puzzled and then looking at her as though seeing her for the first time. "How did you get in here?"

Unable to help herself, she blushed, recalling her secret ogling of his face and body. "Um, well...Misses _Hudson_..."

His expression said _'Oh'_ and he nodded, not caring about that either it seemed.

"Are you sure you're going to be alright?" She asked, following him as he left the bedroom and then stopping short when he entered the bathroom and shut the door in her face.

From inside - "I am always fine." He said.

That was hardly true. "Do you want me to call John?" She asked through the door, leaning against it and listening as he emptied his bladder. John would know what was going on. Probably.

Maybe.

Through the door came a muffled - "John _who_?"

How hung over_ is_ he? she wondered. "John _Watson_ of course."

"Oh. I'm sure if John Watson wishes to speak with me, he will do so when or _if_ he wishes it." He said with a note of finality.

Molly did not miss the implication that it was time for her to leave so she did because there was nothing left to say anyway and she met a waiting, worried Martha at the bottom of the stairs. The older lady had questions on her face. "Well?" His landlady asked. "Is everything all right with Sherlock?"

Molly heard - and could see - the concern on the old woman's face and again wondered just what was it about Sherlock that inspired those around him to embrace his prickliness even though he was often so difficult a man to love. She wondered it about herself often enough.

Molly glanced back up the stairs, hearing Sherlock moving around above. The visit had not alleviated her concerns. "I wish I knew for sure, Misses Hudson but there's some sort of.._.trouble_ I think, between Sherlock and John."

Martha distressed her curls even more. "Oh dear..."

XXX

Part 3 asap


	3. Chapter 3

The Dancing Man Part 3

By GE Waldo

**Rating**: Mature.

**Pairing**: John/Mary and Sherlock/OMC (sort of), and eventually Johnlock but probably nothing especially sexually graphic. Take warning though just in case!

**Summary**: Mycroft and John square off on a quest to keep Sherlock safe from what Mycroft see's as his brother's reckless judgement which he believes is endangering his brother's life. Plus two murder cases that not only challenge Sherlock's incredible abilities but pushes him to his mental limits. A continuation of **The Glass Heart**. (Slightly AU (In this universe Irene Adler and Moriarty are dead for sure and the story is set during a time of limbo _after_ Sherlock is back from the dead but _before_ Watson and Mary's wedding. **Duration**: several months at least)).

**Disclaimer**: Not mine but a fantasy never hurt anyone. Edited though I'm confident I missed things. Please do tell and I shall repair.

SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH

"There," Mary announced spritely as she laid down the tray of things near to where he sat perched on the bed. "We have tea, and milk and sugar and biscuits. Now-" she said as she took a seat beside him in the dingy motel unit-with-kitchen, "why are we here John?"

John suddenly awoke from his reverie and looked stupidly at the tea pot, making no move to pour. "Um...sorry dear – what?"

Mary took his chin in her strong hand and turned his head so he was looking right at her and asked again "I said why are we _here_, John? Why are we in this awful motel in Cardiff instead of home finalizing our wedding arrangements?"

John sucked in a great breath. "I...I just needed to get away, that's all."

"Get away? From Sherlock you mean?"

John bit his lip. Mary was not a stupid woman. "I, we...it's hard to explain." He said lamely.

Mary nodded. "Try."

He rubbed his forehead and stood up, needing to move around or grow roots - deep, forever rotten fibbing roots in this sour smelling room. "Mycroft thinks...Sherlock...Mycroft says that it's...that I'm..._bad_ for Sherlock. He wants me to stop seeing – to stop our friendship...or something."

Mary followed her fiancé's track around the tiny room. "You're bad for him? Oh -" Mary closed her eyes, both hoping inside that it wouldn't get this close but still knowing that this day, and this revelation, would have been inevitable. The words existed now, they had been spoken from Sherlock to her and, she had no doubt, from Mycroft's mouth to John's - who up until now had silently denied them.

But Sherlock was a magnet for people like John. Sherlock was dangerous and brilliant and beautiful and John, who was no stranger to the thrill of dangerous situations and people, had been caught up helplessly in the young detective's dynamic orbit. And John had been drawn to her for many of the same reasons, the only difference was John had spent years coming to love Sherlock, while only months with her. Maybe if Sherlock had not returned... "John, I think you mean that Mycroft _knows_ that Sherlock's in love with you and he doesn't like it."

John turned to stare at her, his mouth working but nothing coming out. HE finally addressed the one part of that which didn't leave him without a functioning brain. "When did the bastard drop by?"

"Mycroft? Never. I mean Sherlock told me about a month ago...but then I had already _guessed_ anyway..." She took a breath because she had let out what she knew Sherlock would assume she would keep as a secret between them. But things were different now. It was only weeks later, and things were different. "...correctly as it turns out. Sherlock loves you John and I don't mean like a chum. He's _in _love with you." She shrugged. "It makes sense."

But true to his nature, her gentle John shook his head. "It doesn't make any sense." He insisted and God, she loved that about him. He was a wonderful, intoxicating man of contrasts. So strong mentally and physically –despite his small stature- but molded together with such kindness and humility – and he was loyal to a fault. John was practically perfect.

Except his heart wasn't in it, wasn't into the whole marriage thing. Not anymore. Not to _her_.

In contrast there was Sherlock. Once you knew him well enough, you could almost always predict how Sherlock would react to something: blood on a floor...a grand sight to his eyes and he would be of course brilliant. But give him human nature and he turned as dumb as a post.

But John...he was a man as full of surprises as they day she had met him.

"I'm sure someone's got it wrong somewhere..." John rubbed at his eyes with frustrated fingers.

"Even _Sherlock_?" She asked incredulously. "John, I'm not angry at him, or you, because of this. Imagine if we had only learned this _after_ the wedding...this has got to be hurting him." It was certainly hurting her, and John by the way his face was twisted with confusion and pain.

"Sherlock is strong." Saying it with more conviction than he felt just to make it true. "Even if...even if Mycroft is right, Sherlock would never expect anything from me." John insisted.

"That's only because he never _expects_ anything from anyone – except you running with him down dark alleys and saving London from bombers, and he isn't even getting _that_ anymore." Mary was surprised at herself. She was sitting there in that dingy room trying to convince her fiancé' that his former room-mate was in love with him and to not entirely dismiss that for fear of hurting the room-mate, and she was equally shocked to find her own feelings growing more and more ambivalent because of it.

She loved John, no question, but she was not a woman to play second fiddle to a tall dark hero-type – high functioning sociopath hero type - with mercury coloured eyes and stunningly brilliant. "John you need to figure this out. Mycroft must think it's dangerous for you to be around Sherlock because he fears his brother is going to get hurt." Not unwisely she thought. In the short time she had known Sherlock she had learned the lengths the man would go to protect those he cared about. After Sherlock had come home from his "death" and John had later explained the completed story to her, she had received only the highlights and even those were astonishing.

The Inspector with whom Sherlock had worked and whom John had introduced her to once, Sherlock's former – at the time – _landlady_, and of course John; for these three people Sherlock had given up everything and escaped with only his life. The man was an adventure novel for Christ's sake.

John rubbed his face hard as though to clear out life's chaff and then threw up his hands. "Oh Christ – this is bloody _perfect_. So let me get this straight – Mycroft knows, Sherlock knows – naturally _he_ knows - and_ you_ know – why in hell didn't I know? Why am I always the last one to find out _anything_?"

Mary tried not to chuckle. She really didn't feel like laughing even though anywhere else it might have been funny. "Because when it comes to these things you're a sweet man who is as thick as pudding." She shook her head. "I knew before Sherlock even said it, John. It's so obvious - how he acts around you, how he looks at you, how he likes it when you touch him..."

"He likes it when I touch him? That's ridiculous. Sherlock _hates_ being touched and I don't think I've _ever_ touched him."

"Oh don't be stupid."

And yes he could suddenly recall a dozen times or more when he had treated Sherlock's injuries, taken his arm to halt him when he was walking too fast, rubbed a spot between his shoulder blades when it was clear the stress was turning his spine into something resembling an inch-worm, draping a blanket over him when he fell into an exhausted sleep on the sofa instead of his own bed, and countless other times where his fingers had strayed closer than necessary or softened their touch from a pat into a rub of approval or encouragement. "Bloody shit!"

"John. Why are we still doing this?" When he didn't answer she clasped her hands in her lap, having already decided. "Look, I think we should...I'm-I'm going to postpone the wedding."

Now he stopped his pacing and stared like a man gone crazy. "What – no. No-no-no, this is just a glitch." He ran to sit beside her again, taking her hands in his. "No-no-no, we don't have to do that. This doesn't even make sense. I am not in love with Sherlock Holmes. I love_ you_."

She smiled sadly at him. "I believe you, but I also know you love Sherlock and more than you're willing to admit. Come on John, we both knew this was coming. I can't compete with him. He's...he's _Sherlock_." She shrugged. There seemed little need to expound on it. "Not being able to see him will crush you. Losing you would ruin him. You're already climbing the walls and it's been only a week and-" She hated to admit it but "-he _needs_ you John." And she hated to say it. "God, I'm being an idiot but he does, he needs you, and you'll probably take this the wrong way but...I think he needs you more than...than I do."

To quell the crushed look on his face she gathered his hands to her breast. "I _do_ love you, but I will be _fine_ alone - if that's what it comes to. Sherlock...as strong as he is and as independent as he appears - now that he feels the way he does...I don't think he'll make it alone."

She grasped his hands tightly because she was being all noble and it didn't feel half as satisfying as it ought to have. John was worth having. She only hoped Sherlock recognised that as deeply as she did. "I don't think it's the Work that's central to him anymore – I think it's you - hell enough of this, what am I saying? - I _know_ it's you. I've seen it, the way he looks at you, how..._complete_ you are when you're around him and how _horribly _sad you were when you thought he was gone forever."

She _had_ seen it. And she'd witnessed it in the detective's face as well. When John was around Sherlock looked at once happier and sadder, powerless to prevent the emotions from betraying what he thought was still his secret. John induced a kind of helplessness in Sherlock, an aching vulnerability that left him looking like a wounded animal, at once retiring but also wistful, his face a faded portrait of hope and longing but so ghostly-subtle you only saw it if you were looking really hard.

And Mary had been studying them both since that fateful reunion at The Landmark. From everything she had read about the supposed late Sherlock Holmes, only John's spoken memories had brought him to life in her mind and not only as a picture of legendary brilliance or bravery but simply a man – a flawed, unusual man. A friend who had been deeply loved and terribly, _terribly_ missed by one John Watson.

The man who now looked back at her with eyes sorrowful. And she knew it was not because he was upset at her decision because there was something else in his eyes now - a spark was shining in them, albeit one full of fear but one that, a moment before, had not been present.

Yet still he protested because John Watson was an honorable man. "Please don't postpone the wedding Mary. I'll figure this out, I promise - I love _you_."

"We're _going_ to wait John..." She said and it was final, letting his hands go and turning away to pour the tea, probably cold now. "...just until you're sure."

John rubbed his face. "Okay, fine. You want to put the wedding off – then bloody fine!"

Exasperated - "John..." Exhausted too.

"_Don't._ Just...don't...I need to get some air." He snatched his coat and left, slamming the door behind him.

Once out and walking, the rain began to drizzle. John ignored it and turned his collar up, putting one foot in front of the other and moving, just moving somewhere - anywhere. Walking had always helped him think. In his pocket his phone vibrated. Hoping it was Mary with a change of heart he anxiously read the message.

_My brother is in a bad way. MH_

"Oh what the _fuck_ does he want now?" John stopped where he was in the rain and typed. _What do you mean?_

_He's been visiting an old friend. I fear the worst. MH_

_I thought you wanted me to stay away from him? You were a pretty insistent SHIT about it as I recall._

_A last resort I suppose. Lestrade is not picking up and I am out of country. There is no one else. MH_

_You think he's using again?_

_Possibly. MH_

_Shitshitshit!_

_Bastard orders me away and then expects me to jump to his service whenever it's too bloody inconvenient._ Mycroft Holmes – Overbearing son-of-a-whore! Prat! Prick! Arsehole!

But because it was Sherlock...

John sprinted the last few blocks back to their dismal room at The Country Inn.

XXX

The cow bell above the door chimed. It was a hollow, used sound. An old bell over a newer door at the entrance to the fish shop.

Paul, his shorn blonde hair greying at the temples and the breath of a Van-dyke on his square chin, lead his patron over to his worktop beside the cash register. "Sherlock." A greeting, a question, he knew Sherlock would take it as he pleased.

Sherlock Holmes he had not seen in over a year. Sherlock who came to him for two things and two things only. One was his excellent traditionally served fish and chips served well salted and piping hot in fresh newspaper and the other – "How've you been?"

Sherlock followed the shop-keep to the worktop where jars of pickles and onions sat in their brine waiting for eager diners, his hands stuck deeply in his coat pockets. He spared not a glance toward the jars, loathing pickled anything. "Paul..."

Paul could tell immediately that this was not a food call. He was almost sure of it but "Hungry?"

"No."

So it was the other thing then. "Bad one?" He asked, putting away his heavily bleached rag and moving out from behind the counter. He noted the knot of muscle at the rear of his friend's mandible where it joined the maxilla; and the sheen of sweat on his forehead.

Sherlock watched his friend's movements and bit his lower lip, knowing Paul would understand that he would not have come here if the craving hadn't been nearing a ten on the agony scale of any addict. "Yes." He said. The word that signaled his defeat hardly escaped his lips and only by the barest of margins was it even audible to the human ear.

Paul walked back over to him and stood close, searching his eyes. "It's slow today anyway." He took a deep breath, anxious eyes searching his friend's ash-blues for signs of doubt or indecision. "Sherlock - are you sure?"

Sherlock looked away to the wall and the posters depicting faded beaches of Hawaii and the lush greens of Puerto Rico, vacation places neither of them had ever been to but looked better than the yellowed wall paper and nicotine stains from a million patron's cigarettes.

"Yes." emerged from his dry lips, this time whispered so softly, that even Paul had to crane an ear to hear it. But he could see the shape of his friend's mouth and the form of the word and recognised how long and hard Sherlock had fought against being here and now, in this time and place. How hard he always fought before making his shoes turn in the direction of his little shop.

When Sherlock said nothing more - "Okay," Paul answered the question himself and took Sherlock's arm gently steering him toward the back of the shop, through a curtain, passed the oil-smelling kitchen, through another curtain and finally into a small sitting room where he had stashed a comfortable chair, a small round table and a long couch for himself. A tiny bathroom with sink served his own needs on those nights he slept here rather than go home to his one room flat, which he had been thinking of giving up.

On the other side of the tiny sitting area stood a squat refrigerator and a single sink with a few square feet of worn worktop and a two burner cooker. This was where Paul lived most of the time, Sherlock knew; it was close to the bone but still all his.

Paul gestured for Sherlock to remove his coat and went to a drawer by the sink to fish something out of it, returning to the couch with a small something wrapped in foil. Paul, middle aged but slim – he had kept himself in shape since his own battle with the needle had lead to dwindling health – kneeled in front of Sherlock and began to unbutton his shirt. "Bad week?"

Sherlock did not watch Paul's fingers as the buttons were loosed. "Month...months."

Paul set the foil wrapped thing aside and pushed the detective's shirt off his shoulders, running his hands over the taut, pale skin. "You've lost weight Sherlock, since I saw you last, but..." He smoothed one palm over the intricate map of the detective's abdominals "you're still..." Paul pinched his bottom lip with his teeth in appreciation, "still so...so..." He sighed with pleasure at the vision before him. Then his hands stilled and he rested his trim buttocks on his trainers for a moment, staring at his friend intently. "Are you _sure_ you're sure? Last time you said-"

"I know what I said last time Paul." Sherlock snapped but there was no anger in it, only a palpably thick exhaustion. Sherlock stared back at his friend, the fish shop man. "I need a hit so badly I can't stand it anymore. _Please_ stop asking me whether or not I'm _sure_."

The flash of pain that crumpled the younger man's normally smooth features made Paul suck in his own breath. "A _really_ bad few months then, yeah...okay...okay Sherlock...no problem." Paul rolled off the silky shirt from Sherlock's white shoulders and began to trail kisses across his clavicles. "Mmm..." He whispered between kisses, "always _loved_ these."

Sherlock eased his lean form back into the cushions of the sofa with a sigh of utter release, closing his eyes to whatever Paul's lips and hands intended for his body, and intending himself to accept it without question, embrace it without prejudice and let it swallow him whole. All done in total silence and complete abandon until the world around him turned into white noise easily ignored and the cacophony inside his head settled until it was still. Until he would not need to think about anything at all. A gift, precious, priceless and lately, the only thing he looked forward to with any enthusiasm.

His fish shop friend unzipped his trousers, pulled what he wanted from beneath the elastic of his cotton boxers, opened the foiled thing with his teeth and then expertly rolled the condom onto Sherlock's already swollen cock.

Before coming here the world has reduced itself to three absolutes: The murder case - which was his mind's high-speed motorway; John - who was his own breaking heart...

And now Paul...

Paul was his deafening mind's salvation, the redeemer of his agonized flesh - that wanted heroin so badly the pain of it had become a corporeal demon - licked the slit of his penis and then took him in...

...in a single swallow, sucking greedily and licking the underside, nibbling the head and fingering Sherlock's ever tightening balls. Stroking the fine hairs surrounding it with the fingers of his left hand, Paul held Sherlock in his right, sucking and nibbling, working up to the inevitable and long overdue rush of fluid that would soon emerge in hot streams.

Sherlock kept his hands at his side, furiously resisting the urge to run his fingers across Paul's buzzed locks, keeping his eyes closed and his thoughts purposely away from any hint of Baker Street or the work or John, until the moment where he knew, along with his own semen, his thoughts would pour out into nothing; the place to where only Paul's talented tongue knew the path.

Sherlock waited for it, and it was close. His body would seek and find its release and his mind would empty itself into the universe and for a few blessed, blessed minutes he would be free.

And then suddenly he was coming and _freedom_...un-crowded, unhinged _freedom_. He was ejected! Flung to the far reaches where being Sherlock Holmes was not recognised. His thoughts incredibly, gloriously unfettered by the ceaseless wheels that never stopped their rattling and the cogs that relentlessly turned and turned until they drove him to near madness. His mind that never allowed him real rest or a human level of peace...

His cock burst and then his mind too, a white space with no walls or doors or questions needing answered. No one's face intruded and displayed its disapproval. No one opened their mouth to speak the cruel names. His mind broke open and all of it scattered to the four winds, taking all the stress and grief and incomprehensibleness of people and nature and requirements of _The Normals _with it.

When Sherlock folded over into his friend's large hands, by experience Paul knew that Sherlock was by no means finished with his cure, his treatment. Immediately the detective grabbed hold of his shoulders - it happened every time, almost a reflex - and Sherlock squeezed, putting all his remaining strength into it, dragging his own slim form close and then onto the older man's, sucking his own body against him until no air existed between their flesh, and then holding on for dear life, like a man drowning, going down the third and last time.

And by experience Paul remained calm and quiet as Sherlock's tears made his own skin warm and wet. He brushed fingers through the detective's curls until, after a few short minutes, some calm returned to the man. "It's Watson isn't it? John Watson?"

Sherlock, as he never had the other times either, did not answer.

But Paul knew it was. He'd known for some time and spoke kind words into his friend's soft hair. "You've got it bad I know. And he's off with someone else now. I read about it in the paper – an engagement announcement, but just not to _you_..." He kissed the silky hair, petting the trembling arms and made soothing noises from deep in his throat. "It's alright. I'm sure it'll be alright."

Paul closed his eyes and sighed, the helpless sound of a man facing his friend's grief but powerless to do anything about it, other than what he had just done. What he had done perhaps a half dozen times in all the years he had known Sherlock. The stroking of the soft hair, the quick mindless blow-job which meant nothing between them except his willingness to help and Sherlock's willingness to be helped, even the illusion of closeness, seemed to be things Sherlock craved as any normal human being but things which the detective resolutely denied himself.

As Paul watched his friend come down from what Sherlock would term "a weakness from the losing side", now came to settle the illusion of contentment, the lie of being "okay" and it always made Paul feel bit sick inside. Sherlock slipped into a stupor that Paul knew would last only minutes. Born with a brain that never quieted and a body that lived almost entirely separate from it, each a castaway from the other, each experiencing its own version of living with all the inherent agonies there-in, Sherlock was the most entirely alone man that he had ever known.

And there was almost no comfort for him out there, which Sherlock would simply call a weakness anyway, without the experience to know that all people required it for health - it was not actually an _option_. This was the echoing space that Sherlock lived in until the cravings for a hit of cocaine or heroin got to be too much for even the great Sherlock Holmes to endure. And that's where he came in.

Paul watched, always fascinated by this part, as Sherlock would slump in his arms, asleep in seconds – seemingly going deeper than any human being had ever slept in the history of the world - only to awaken moments later, a bewildered start on his beautifully crafted features, and then his full faculties would return to their regular orbits in that magnificent mind and he would become once again that exceptional brilliant man, perfectly controlled and ready to take on almost anything.

Sherlock would be restored.

For Paul it was like witnessing the rebirth of a star that had expected to be snuffed out for good.

"Sherlock, you know I'm here for you. Hell, I _love_ being here for you." Paul had to admit he himself was just a little bit in love with Sherlock and could not grasp what was wrong with John Watson that he did not want this incredibly brilliant, good looking, very sexy, and very _exciting_ man. "But I'm betting you haven't told him have you?"

Sherlock, his eyes already drying, shook his head, his wet nose rubbing against Paul's naked chest. Paul smiled, not minding at all.

"Then why don't you? If he's already leaving, I don't see how it could possible make things worse."

Sherlock lifted his head. His eyes were dry now but bore the telltale redness of a fit of weeping. "John is too honorable to break it off no matter what I say. Or what he feels."

Paul lifted Sherlock's chin and kissed his mouth once. What he wouldn't give to have a whole night with that lithe body and that feral hair with those soft, soft lips moaning for_ him_...But he was a practical man and would take what he could get. "Then he's a bit of an idiot if you ask me."

XXX

It was dark when he returned. Mary heard the key in the lock – old fashioned metal keys, it really was an awful place – and he entered, trying to be quiet. _That's my John. I hurt him and he tries to be considerate about it_. She felt the tears start once more but was resolute in her decision. John wasn't sure about her – about them, anymore. Marriage right now would be a mistake and she did not want him spending the next twenty years in regretful silence. And he would of course. He would suffer and take it like a good soldier. And she would be stuck with a husband who was everything she wanted except for the part where he loved her more than anyone else.

All because there _was_ another.

She heard him undress and slip under the covers. He didn't reach for her this time but she supposed he could tell she was awake by the way she was breathing, respirations even but sounding_ too_ even, too controlled. He had probably picked up that bit of deduction from living with Sherlock.

"I'm sorry." He said quietly, sounding terribly defeated. "You're right. I thought I was sure...about us. I'm truly sorry and now there may be a problem with Sherlock."

"What's wrong?"

"Mycroft thinks he may be using again."

"Oh no. You need to go and talk to him."

"In the morning."

"John..."

"I know, but just a few more hours. I just need a few more hours with you. If Sherlock's relapsed there's little I can do about it tonight. Where would I find him? There are a hundred drug dens in London he could be at."

"Do you want me to come?" She did love him really a lot. _God help me._ "Whatever you need John. Remember that...whatever you need."

"You're a bloody amazing woman, Mary. I don't deserve you." Praise and yet he sounded tired, sad. "_Christ_ I wish things were different."

"I know."

XXX

John tapped the window between himself and the taxi driver. "Wait – wait up, just drop me here...please. Right here is good."

The cabbie pulled over to the kerb and John handed him a tenner, piling out onto the sidewalk – "Thanks..."

He looked down the street. Yes, it was Sherlock walking away from him. Going somewhere but not in a hurry, so probably not a case – and not in the direction of Lestrade's building anyway. Not toward Bart's so no experiments for that day; and not toward Tesco's or any nearby grocer, not that Sherlock ever shopped for himself, at least not that John had ever witnessed. _Hah! Take that Mister Brilliant Detective; I can make a deduction or three myself - thank you very much._

No, Sherlock was going to the fish and chip shop - Paulie's Fish Palace. It was three in the afternoon, not quite time for dinner, too late for lunch – but then Sherlock ate at the oddest hours so none of that was definitive. Oh, there, he'd stopped, right in front of the fish shop. The door opened and all John saw was an arm issuing the detective inside. The door closed with the faint ring of a bell.

Right. This was where Sherlock went for fish and chips. Some old friend, he had indicated at one time or other, owned it. Sherlock had never introduced them. In fact, John didn't think he and Sherlock had ever gone there together for chips or fish. Take-away is how Sherlock indulged his craving for fried chips and haddock. Always take-away.

When John reached the door in question, the sign had been turned to _Closed_ and the bolt was turned. John glanced up at the overhead signage. Yes, this was the right place but he was locked out though it was the middle of a business day. And yet he could have _sworn_...he was certain that Sherlock had entered _this_ door. Damned odd...

XXX

Sherlock left the shop and stopped short.

John was leaning against the brickwork beside the shop, his legs and arms crossed. Tense, angry and ready to fight.

Sherlock was simply not in the mood. "John...how was your time "abroad" at The Country Inn?"

"T'riffic. Saw the Great Wall and ate bird's feet." Of course the bastard would figure out where they were. It had been a pathetic lie anyway. John looked at the shop-front, noting the sign was still flipped to the_ closed_ side. "So this is where you come." He said accusingly hurrying to keep up with Sherlock's longer stride. His friend had without another word turned and resumed his trek toward Baker Street and home.

John called after him. "I know why you come here Sherlock."

A snort. "Care to set a wager on that?"

Watson caught up and grabbed his coat sleeve, making him stop, and then positioning himself so he could face Sherlock toe to toe. Watson's doctor mode kicked in as soon as he saw his face. Sherlock's cheeks were flushed, perhaps the first colour he had ever seen on the normally ivory white skin - so elevated blood pressure - and his hair was a bit...wilder than usual. It was some confirmation that Sherlock was using something. "You don't just come here for the food, do you? He's your dealer isn't he?" He demanded.

At that Sherlock rolled his eyes and groaned. "Bloody _Mycroft_ got you onto this didn't he?" Sherlock looked up at the nearest CCTV and shouted. "Mind your own business big brother. Don't you have some diet cakes to consume?"

"Well that doesn't sound like a denial at all, does it?" John said, deciding that Sherlock's silence about the suspected drugs was all but an admission. His hands angry fists at his sides John snapped "_Christ_ Sherlock, after all you went through to get off the damn drugs, you're using again. Why the _hell_ didn't you say something to me if it was getting that bad? There are alternatives."

"Lately you haven't made yourself exactly available, John and up to and including this moment I see no reason to change that – do you?"

"Sherlock, I'm a doctor. I can help you."

Weary of the whole conversation Sherlock skirted Watson's attempts to keep him in one spot and increased his pace. "Go home John. Mary's waiting."

But Watson was not one to be dismissed so easily and he grabbed Sherlock's coat again, this time not letting go. "No, goddamn it Sherlock, you are going to stand there and listen to me!"

"Why?" Sherlock asked. "Why should I listen to _you_ when as is _so_ often the case you don't have any idea what's going on?"

"I know what drugs can do to a mind."

"Interestingly enough, so do I."

"What is it...hmm? What are you on? Cocaine? Heroin? Something worse?"

"Far worse as it turns out..." Sherlock muttered.

"Then what?" Watson demanded his face red and white with fury and involuntarily Sherlock's mind regurgitated a memory of Mycroft making the same demands with the same self-righteous expression on his face. Then he shook his arm free of Watson's iron grip. "Go to hell John! I am not on anything in case you'd had mind to _ask_."

Watson, appearing like he didn't believe him at all, set his jaw and crossed his arms across his chest. A challenge if ever there was one. "Oh?" He said loudly enough for the few eyes passing by to turn and look. "How long does it take to order a cup of chips? You were in there for over a half hour."

Sherlock shook his head and looked away to the street where people walked unhindered. "So quick to believe the worst of me..." Sherlock leaned close, taking advantage of his few inches on John and snarled right back "Paul was my sponsor, John, not my dealer, my _sponsor!"_

Sherlock took one small step back to put distance between himself and John's impenetrable wall of disbelief. He swallowed audibly shifting the anger from his shoulders because it was useless now anyway. Trust brother Mycroft to dig up and shred the very last corner of privacy in his too public world. "Paul and I were in rehab together. He was near the end of his stint while I was at the beginning. Once I got out, he was assigned to me as my sponsor, someone I could go to, someone to help me when I needed it – when the cravings got too bad for me to handle which was almost _never_ by the way - _if_ that question ever comes up in your head at any future date. And should it kindly remember that it was never _any_ of your business."

Watson's face warped from doubt to shock to clarity and then finally contriteness. He stared, feeling like the world's biggest heel. Dropping his arms to his sides, he stuffed them in his pockets shifting his feet, fidgeting in his discomfort for having doubted. "I...oh, I see." He cleared his throat. Another Watson_ tell_ and Sherlock smiled to himself as his resentment suddenly fell away like skin cells. Emotions he remembered were useless things and suddenly all of their arguing was of no importance.

"When the cravings get to be too much and lately everything seems a bit too much, I can go to him and Paul...he _understands_ - not merely _comprehends_ as there is a great difference between the two. Paul helps me. We have found a substitute for drugs. He helps me, John. Paul helps me..._cope_."

John looked at his shoes finding himself suddenly immensely proud of Sherlock for admitting that he _needed_ help. Sherlock followed Watson's gaze to the doctor's footwear and finding them scuffed. John wore no socks, the laces were loosely tied...his jumper smelled of yesterday's sweat. He had not groomed himself. John had been in a hurry to find him.

Putting it together in seconds - "Why is Mary not with you?" Sherlock asked sharply, suddenly needing to know the answer to that. It was important. An ill-groomed John was an anomaly. It meant he was upset with something and that something Sherlock was eight-five percent certain had nothing to do with him but everything to do with Mary.

John dug his hands into his jean's pockets and shrugged helplessly, feeling like an even bigger heel. "She went home."

Ah. He had deduced correctly. Sherlock had also not missed the sour noted in John's words and understood then that something significant had occurred between them. He wished to ask more but John's expression had abruptly shut down at the subject of his fiancé and Sherlock bit back his next question. With John and emotions you had to pick your time. John's reactions could be quite volatile when it came to his private life.

"Um, can I walk you home?"

Sherlock tucked his hands into his coat and turned toward Baker Street once more, this time keeping his pace even, and a tad slower, for his shorter legged friend. "I have no books for you to carry," he teased, "but I believe I have milk that is not passed date - tea?"

"Fine. But when we get there, I want us to talk some more."

Another groan but this time there was no true malcontent in it.

"I mean it, Sherlock. We need to have a few things out."

"Way to ruin a mood."

XXX

Once back at the Baker Street flat, John put on water to boil and readied the tea-pot. It was a very English thing to do and besides it calmed him. He found he hashed things out better after having just consumed an excellent sweet cuppa.

Sherlock shed his coat, laying it across the desk chair and flung himself into his comfortable leather seat by the hearth, crossing his long legs.

Sherlock was in true form, Watson thought, as the detective steepled his fingers beneath his chin and regarded his friend coolly. "You know we still have a case."

Watson nodded. "Sherlock that is _not_ what I want to talk about."

He sighed wearily. "Very well." He drummed fingers on the arm of the chair. "Did my brother put you up to this...ridiculous attempt to shun me?" Sherlock asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously, and his expression taking on the look of a blood hound that smells fresh Mycroft on the air. "Because this has all the hallmarks of one of his ridiculous schemes to-" Sherlock did little bunny quotes in the air "'protect' me."

John sat down in his own Baker Street easy chair and locking his fingers together "Look, Sherlock...I...this is difficult enough without...it's better, I think, for both of us if I didn't..."

Sherlock stared back unblinkingly. Appearing a bit bored actually and John took a deep strengthening breath. "Shit...look you were hurt, _again_."

Sherlock's mind put it together in a flat second. "Because of_ you_, you think." He suggested. "Mycroft thinks you are hazardous to my health. You really shouldn't put any faith in what my brother believes, John, he is singularly obsessed with some misguided vow he made many years ago to keep me safe for our parent's sake or his own peace of mind or something like that." In Sherlock's mind all three laughable endeavors, and none of which mattered a single iota. "It's an old promise made by an over-zealous big brother to over-protective parents, with rather embarrassing consequences at times and, as you may have noticed, intrusive."

Intrusive - yes. Sherlock was twenty-right, twenty-nine years old? So an adult perfectly capable of making his own decisions about his life, even if those decisions put him in personal, and at times, mortal, danger. Watson wondered how many times Mycroft had invaded Sherlock's privacy, and his flat, in search of evidence that his little brother was using again or in general becoming too reckless for mummy and daddy's comfort.

He'd personally witnessed three such home invasions, all of which had left Sherlock fuming. His short history of drug abuse not-with-standing, the violation of his personal space and life had to be incredibly grating. Watson sympathised. He could not imagine the indignity when even Sherlock's friends and acquaintances had witnessed at least two such violations. Small wonder Sherlock rarely went home to visit and that the two brothers fought like wolverines.

John imagined how humiliating it would be to have no less than three parents all watching your every move. "Sherlock...Mycroft...he um..."

"Threatened you? Said he would make your life difficult if you did not stay away?" Sherlock dismissed Mycroft and his threats with a wave of his hand. "I can handle my brother on my worst day. It's of no importance. Your employment and chosen paths in life will continue unabated, you have my word. You and Mary are quite safe. Mycroft will do nothing."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because if he hurt you or Mary in any way he knows I would hurt him back – very badly. Even if I had to kill him."

Watson frowned disapprovingly. "I hope you're joking about that."

Sherlock shrugged in answer. "We've all killed John."

Watson stared back, rubbing his chin. "I had no choice, you were about to swallow a pill of poison."

"No I wasn't."

"Yes you were."

"No."

Watson sighed, perturbed, leaning back because this was a topic he had wanted to get into for years. "You risk your life all the time."

"You went to war."

"That's different."

"Hardly."

"I had back-up, other soldiers. I was almost never in the thick of battle. You risk yourself needlessly."

"You took risks. You were wounded – twice."

"It was war."

"So is this. And I take mitigated risks, yes, but they are never needless."

"You break into international criminal headquarters and locked rooms. You ignore your health. You face down entire criminal organizations confident that you will always succeed."

"Fruitless don't you think to break into anywhere with the attitude that I will _not_." Sherlock offered one of his stiff but conciliatory smiles. "Besides, since when do I break into anywhere without my crack shot at my side?"

Watson did not give ground. "You've been hit by a car and was nearly drowned, and all within a few weeks."

"Some coincidences must be tolerated for the greater good."

And then the question that was really on his mind, the one that had been nagging at him for many months. "Why would you not tell me you were alive as you had told twenty of your tramp pals, your parents and the newspaper vendor down the block?"

Sherlock dismissed the last one with a flick of a finger. "He simply guessed correctly."

"Guessed? He sounded fairly sure about it to me. Almost had me convinced you were still alive."

"Well he's one of the obsessed fans of your blog. Can I help it if I attract the compulsive?"

"So why not me and don't give me any of that I would have given the game away crap."

Sherlock studied an interesting pattern on the rug. "I had to be sure the assassins had truly abandoned their intent to kill you and the others and exactly why are we discussing this yet again?"

John stayed on track. "We never really did so we're talking about this again, and we will _again_ until you give me a straight answer. It seems to me that after a year of no assassin's bullets coming my way it ought to have been obvious."

"Obvious? _Obvious_? Moriarty was _anything_ but obvious in his criminal machinations - which is why he almost _bested_ me."

"You're just excusing yourself."

Sherlock sighed. "I had to be _sure_, John. I had to be sure and there was no way to do that without revealing myself and if I revealed myself then they would know, quite _clearly_ in fact, that I was alive. What would you have had me do – ring them up? _"Pardon me but do you mind very much telling me whether or not you still plan on shooting my best friend in the head?_" Or would you rather I had died for real? It might have saved you all the trouble of mourning me I suppose and this tedious conversation."

Watson flushed, and turned his face away. "Sherlock I appreciate what you did for me, in fact I doubt I will ever be able to repay you for saving my life, but as your friend – as your best friend – sharing your plans with me is a sign of _trust_; it is _you_ revealing to _me_ that you trust me enough to help you. If anything is to happen between us in the future, I have to know that you'll share things with me._ Everything_."

"You did help, your sadness convinced Moriarty's assassins and you were _not_ murdered."

Watson sighed and then muttered. "The ruse went a long way in steering me toward _that_ goal on my own."

Sherlock caught the implication but decided not to directly address the subject of his friend's almost suicide. It left his insides cold however and his heart beating a hard rhythm against his rib cage. "I am infinitely gratified that you decided not to act on that compulsion. It would have made my two years of exile rather pointless."

Watson's expression said that although he knew intimately what Sherlock's – as it turned out - fake death had cost him, he had not contemplated what the two years had cost Sherlock. "Just promise me that next time, although I hope to God there is no next time, you'll at least send me a note or something."

Sherlock studied his own fingers for a few seconds and then said grudgingly "Next time...I suppose I could...seek your input..."

"_No. _If we're going to continue this partnership, from now on you're going to tell me _everything_."

Sherlock's eyes lit up and John found himself almost senselessly delighted to see it. "Mm...Depends..." The detective ventured.

"On?"

"On whether or not in the interim your acting skills improve." He grinned and his friend returned it. It was a small one but an improvement.

Then a crease appeared between Sherlock's brows and he tilted his head, realising that his brain had skipped over something crucial. "What do you mean?"

"What do you _mean_ what do you mean?"

"You spoke of a future - _our_ future - _together_."

John pressed his lips together and looked away and back and from his intimate knowledge of John Watson tells Sherlock understood it meant something rather big had transpired; something John was reluctant to talk about. "Did we not just agree to share..?" He prompted.

John Watson's whole body tensed and then he stretched his neck until the tension popped at the same time forcing his limbs to sag in the chair, relaxing, spilling over the piece of furniture like water off a rock. Only his right hand moved, worrying his growth of whiskers.

Sherlock noted the mix of red and grey in them and for some reason it both charming and worrisome. He could not pin down an explanation for those emotions.

John said "Yes, we did." And Sherlock waited while John sorted through whatever words he wished to use to convey the coming information.

John leaned forward, looking into Sherlock's eyes. Sherlock stared back, entirely puzzled by his friend's countenance. One possibility came to mind with a sickening thud. It would explain John's returning to him, his desire to "clear the air", and his creeping silence. Possibly even account for Mary's absence. "John...you're not sick..?"

He shook his head and Sherlock relaxed.

"No, Sherlock, I'm fine. Really, I'm fine. Perfect health."

Sherlock felt his own building terror ease. Perhaps John was not going to divulge anything more. "John..?"

Watson needed to talk to someone first. He suspected but wasn't sure about some things. "Do you mind if we take this up later today? I have an errand to run."

Sherlock nodded. "I shall take advantage of the quiet to have a bath."

"Thanks."

XXX

Even though the shop was now closed this customer had been standing outside waiting for the last ten minutes judging by his rain-soaked hair. Paul had noticed him as he had counted the day's proceeds and turned off the coffee pots and steeped-tea maker. The glass-fronted shelves were now almost devoid of product and there was cleaning to do.

The person outside finally drew up the nerve to knock on the door.

Wiping his hands on his apron, Paul unlocked the dead-bolt. The man who entered was not one of his regular's. They would know he was shut down for the day.

This fellow stood in the doorway with his hands in his pockets, slouching like a drowned rat. But he never-the-less nodded his thanks and entered, taking a seat not at the curtained windows – the two most coveted tables where breakfasters could watch the city awaken from behind a hot Jamaican or French roast coffee and hot scone with raspberry jam – but at the less coveted worktop where three bar-type stools were bolted to the floor.

"I'm closed but what can I get for you?" Paul asked. _What the hell._ He wiped the counter-top one final time, sweeping away the crumbs until it shone. He liked his shop _clean_.

The fellow, not tall but built rather well - thick in the shoulders - legs strong and very sure on his feet, except for the smallest, almost-not-there limp as he approached and hoisted himself onto the stool, said nothing at first and then linking his fingers together on the worktop – "Don't suppose you might have some coffee left?" He asked.

No smile but no malice either. Pleasant voice, friendly type, likes for people to get along Paul thought. Blonde hair slowly going over to greyish and skin tanned despite the rainy skies of February. Unshaven but Paul suspected that was an unusual state of affairs, but his tan was an old tan, long time earned. Blue eyes wide open and honest but a bit of an intense gaze. Still one that perhaps didn't see obvious things right away.

Watchful though like a guard dog is watchful, intent on its specified job. There were some fine wrinkles around the eyes. Nearing forty but still attractive to whomever eyed him as their type, Paul figured. Nice looking but not here for the company and certainly not the over-brewed coffee.

When Paul set the cup down in front of the fellow, sliding over a bowl of sugar and a pint of real cream, his quiet after-hours customer said "You must be Paul."

_Ah._ Paul arranged some glasses beneath the worktop and smiled in answer. Makes sense. "And you're John Watson." He reached out his hand and John shook it, liking that he had produced a modicum of surprise in the man.

John, the smaller man of the two, still possessed a mighty strong grip and his finger tips were calloused from...he wasn't sure. Policeman maybe? Soldier?

"Pleased to meet you," John Watson said.

Paul nodded politely. "Any friend of Sherlock's..." He added, untying his apron and hanging it up on a hook near the kitchen doorway. He poured himself a coffee of his own, adding cream but no sugar and came around to sit beside John on the stool next down. Best not to have the work-station separating them as they discussed what, he felt sure would be a very interesting exchange.

"So...Sherlock, Sherlock..." Paul said, his eyes adding _'A most wonderful subject'_. "What would you like to know?"

Watson set his cup down and linked his hands together in his lap, swivelling his stool to face the shop owner. "Well, you surprise me a bit."

"Sherlock doesn't care a lick about privacy. At least not about mine."

John Watson took a breath and let it out, his eyes searching the others, and then he laughed a bit ironically. "Funny, I had a few dozen things I wanted to ask you and now that I'm here...I'm not sure...but then Sherlock's already pretty miffed with me right now."

Paul understood even though he didn't know the specific reason. A miffed Sherlock did not come around much, but still this poor bugger was not happy. Maybe Sherlock had cut him off, but then knowing Sherlock like he thought he did, it was doubtful they were involved, not sexually at least. And yet there seemed to be a connection there, enough of one to send this chap scrambling to discover who Paul was and what he was to Sherlock.

Interesting. Studying John's frank expression coupled with the uncertainty lurking beneath; secretly Paul concluded that he rather liked this John Watson. Sherlock's reaction to John's prying – Sherlock's _feelings_ – were clearly on the man's mind. In Paul's experience few people ever bothered to consider how a bit of news or a cutting comment would affect the young detective. Few people cared enough to censor their opinion of the man himself either, not in private or to his face.

"He _is_ complicated, isn't he?" Paul offered by way of a second opening and John smiled at that, chuckling with some very genuine fellow feeling and then scratched at the back of his head, a self depreciating gesture and a wholly unconscious one, Paul thought. Charming actually. _Sherlock does have exquisite taste in men!_

Yes, he did like this fellow. Paul decided to go for the crux of the matter. "I met Sherlock at Craig - Castle Craig - that's an addiction treatment center up in Scotland. Very expensive but very effective. It took all my savings for me to get in there and I'm sure it took a generous carving out of Sherlock's parents pockets to get _him _in there and if you're wondering why I'm telling you this very personal thing, it's because until you comprehend what sort of addict Sherlock is, you'll never be able to_ truly _understand him, or why he still comes to me."

"You were his sponsor?"

"Yup. Still am, in a way – oh not officially of course, that would be a breach of trust between sponsor and client, but I still help him when I can. When he...has nowhere else to go."

He had John Watson's full attention now. "So what sort of addict was Sherlock?"

"_Is_," Paul corrected him. "_Is_. _Always_ is. And always will be. Just because he isn't using and hasn't for years doesn't mean he isn't an addict. For any addict it is, unfortunately, a lifetime battle to stay clean."

Watson had read as much but still, even as a physician educated in many of the baser side of humanity's physical conditions, it was still difficult to believe. "But the cravings get to him sometimes." John ventured and Paul nodded, looking pleased that John had honed in on the most pertinent reason for Sherlock's infrequent visits.

"_Exactly_. Cravings, of a sort, drive him to me on occasion and I do my best to...assist him passed them."

"Of a sort?"

Paul tilted his head. "Mmm, come now, you're a clever fellow I suspect, you can guess I'm sure. I _like_ Sherlock; I have always liked Sherlock – a lot - though not as much as you probably do. You're sort of obvious you know."

"Obvious?"

"Very."

John shook his head, letting that lie. "How if I may ask do you help him? I'm rather faced with a sticky problem myself and it's one I'm afraid I'm not anywhere near equipped to handle."

"So you need to know...what kinds of things Sherlock gets addicted to." Paul said "What un-does his buttons, slows his chains, oils his gears - makes him all _wiggly_..?"

"Well I wouldn't have put it exactly that way - in fact I'm not sure I quite get all that to be honest."

"Sure you do. Because that's what you _must_ get if you're talking about Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock isn't your typical addict, far from it. He's not looking to _get_ high, or reach some sort of cloud in the sky of psychedelic dreams..." Paul leaned over to underline the next point. "Sherlock craves that which brings him to his Sleepy Place."

"Sounds rather like the every-day addict to me."

"Not remotely." Paul raised his eyebrows because he knew that was not what John Watson was expecting to hear. "Let's try it this way: Sherlock craves those things that let him have peace, John, a vacation from his own magnificent self and whatever those things are, those things become what give him rest. They sooth the beast inside that demands his full and constant attention - his _mind_, John Watson, his _mind_ that never stops its crazy train of deductive thought. There's a hundred speeding locomotives wrapped up in that skull and all crammed to capacity and all forever pouring into that castle he calls a Mind Palace. Sherlock needs the high - not a_ place_ to escape to - but in order to escape_ himself_."

John stared, then shook his head and blinked. "I'm not sure I understand."

"You do." Paul assured him, "you've _seen_ it. How many hours does he play that violin each week when he's on a case? Or when he's_ not_? Clock it some time. How many hours does he sleep once a case is over? Twenty? Thirty? How many cigarettes does he smoke when he's got nothing to do?"

"He's on the patch now."

"Oh Christ! No _wonder_ he was such a wreck." Then Paul remembered who he was talking to. "Whoops, sorry. Probably wasn't supposed to divulge that bit but it's all about distractions."

"I'm still not sure I get exactly what you're telling me. Are you saying Sherlock became addicted to drugs to escape not from reality but from...his own _mind_?"

Paul raised his right index finger to his forehead in a tiny salute. "Bingo." The idea was clearly a very new one for Watson who suddenly looked stricken by it and Paul felt for the guy. He explained, somewhat sadly, further. "Imagine John possessing a mind _that_ keen, a mind that see's everything in its _exact_ and true form, the whole truth and nothing but the truth of what is going on around you; someone's clothes, their expression, the perfume they wear, the sweat in their brow, the way they hold their head, the scuff on their shoe and being able to deduce where they live and where they once lived, their choice of vocation and vacation, their relationship with their parents, siblings or significant other's in ten seconds or less.

"Or stepping into a room and seeing not furniture but its manufacturer, age, style, origin and whether it's the owner's favorite or a cast-off from a hated relation, or being able to sum up someone's entire work history by the paintings they hang on their wall or their sexual preferences including kinks by the way they arrange their candle-sticks on the mantel – _that_ is Sherlock's mind at work, John. And as much as it might seem like a blessing and a wonder, now imagine it _NEVER. Shutting._ _Off_! Not for a single moment. Not while he's awake and not even while he's fighting like a demon to escape into a few hours of real sleep."

John Watson had wondered about it before. "Autistic?" He blurted and then explained "Someone once told me he thought Sherlock suffers from perhaps autism or maybe aspergers."

Paul tilted his head this way and that. "Maybe...but if he does he's never been diagnosed – not to my knowledge anyway. But one thing's for sure – he's the most brilliant man I have ever met in my life." Paul smiled sadly. "And I feel sorry for him because Sherlock is both the proprietor and the prisoner of how his mind works."

"So the stress of that, the work eases it."

Paul nodded. "_The_ Work – exactly."

"So when he's got no way to occupy his head, it gets to him...he looks for the thing that will bring him some peace, something to slow him down."

Paul shrugged. "It's why I decided to work with him all those years ago and why I still help him now. No one else understands him, or really wants to try, except for now maybe you. Sherlock needs his Sleepy Place – not _all_ the time, just...sometimes."

"Heroin brings him to his Sleepy Place?"

"Heroin _gave_ – past tense - him that, yes."

"And what gives him that now?"

Paul sighed. "I'd like to think it's me but it's not. And sometimes unfortunately the thing that gives him peace can also become the thing that brings him the most grief. Depends..."

"On what?"

"That you'll have to figure out on your own. It shouldn't be too hard."

Watson nodded thoughtfully, satisfied but not entirely so. There was more of course, much more than, like it or not, he was privy to. And he really did want to help him. He really did want to see Sherlock happy.

And safe.

Watson stood up and extended his hand once more. "Well, I appreciate the time."

"Think it'll help - our little talk?"

John looked at his coat hanging off the end of his fingers. "I honestly don't know. He's my best friend and..." He shook his head. "I've a decision of my own to make now but..." He sighed.

Paul understood only too well. "As I said -_ complicated_."

As John left the shop he made with unsure steps back to Baker Street. It was no longer his home and Mary had made very clear that he should spend time away from her until he had made a decision so he was effectively without a roost to call his own.

He stopped at the door to 221B and stood looking at it. The askew door knocker, placed in its relative position by Sherlock – who would sternly deny the fact – and the white gleaming paint kept sparkling by regular scrubbings from Misses Hudson. The small flat up the single flight of stairs, and the next flight to his own bedroom – this still called to his heart as _home_. This felt comfortable and familiar. The first place he had felt like that since he had left for the war.

Even Harry's larger, more tastefully decorated place hadn't felt as welcoming as this small, unremarkable flat at the top of dusty stairs where Sherlock had welcomed him seemingly without any doubts. He hadn't even opened a line of questioning about personal habits other than to warn John about a few of his own.

No, he had ushered John into the place like a man showing off a personal prized possession, one he was suddenly anxious to share. John remembered looking around, a little puzzled at the disorder and thinking that it had to be the former tenant's stuff not yet cleared out. And then Sherlock had muttered something about it being his stuff and gathered up a paper or two, nailing them to the mantel with a fine carving knife in an endearing but sadly pathetic attempt to "straighten up".

John had made his decision right then,_ that_ second. He had often thought back to that day and asked himself _why_. Sherlock a perfect stranger, the flat a mess, Sherlock's housekeeping abilities clearly atrocious almost beyond reason, and yet at that moment, standing there in the middle of a perfect stranger's chaos, somehow he had known deep down that Sherlock needed him more than _he_ needed a place to live. Behind the man's expensive suite and air of indomitable control John felt lurked a small boy in need of a scolding and a warm embrace and behind _that_ was crouched a very lonely person anxious to make something of a good impression to a perfect stranger.

And, remarkably John thought, Sherlock had made an impression but it was not the flat itself that had accomplished it. The flat was just a flat. It was the man himself who had been the selling point. The air simply _vibrated_ when Sherlock was around. Everything sprang to attention when Sherlock entered a room, and life became electric. John could taste it on his tongue whenever he and Sherlock were on a case or even just talking over tea and biscuits.

He had returned to the living the day he had met Sherlock Holmes. And, he was convinced, so had Sherlock.

A picture of Sherlock smiling, almost anxious for john to say yes to the arrangement, flitted across John's memories. The detective had looked a bit embarrassed about his flat but...and then suddenly everything seemed simple. John held up, and stood in the middle of the sidewalk, letting the clues fall into place like little blocks.

"Oh...oh my god..." he breathed. "Oh...Christ, Watson – you moron!.._sex_...Paul and Sherlock...holy _fu_-...that's what he meant, Jeezus..." John ran fingers through his hair, not sure what to do with this new information. Sherlock and sex had always been so...so..._separate_. "Christ, Paul and Sherlock..._Christ..."_

XXX

The discordant howl of tortured violin strings assaulted his ears, but they stopped when he called out. "Sherlock?"

Sherlock still held the instrument to his chin as he turned to face John, but stilled the bow. His lips twisted in amusement. "Did you and Paul enjoy your talk?" He asked as a greeting.

John smiled, not all that surprised that Sherlock guessed where he had gone although the detective would have denied there was any guesswork involved what-so-ever. The collage of images where Paul was doing..._things_ to Sherlock made his heart hammer and his stomach spasm in a most delightful - and then ugly - way. Watson refused to consider what he was feeling was jealousy because, he told himself, Sherlock had a right to his own privacy and his body's private practises. "Yes. And did you have a good bath?"

Sherlock's hand did not resume his tuning. "Fine." He sounded bored. "Did Paul _spill_?"

"Umm..." John took a moment, a long moment, to hang up his coat on the hook by the door. Then - "Will you sit? I have something to ask you."

"Ah. He spilled then." But Sherlock seemed in the frame of mind to comply and put the priceless violin carefully in its case along with the bow. John had tried to replace it one day and found there was a trick to doing it so both fit correctly. Sherlock set it into place like two lovers would meld their fingers together – or their bodies - with the ease of long acquaintance.

Sherlock resumed his seat. He was now wearing his pajama bottoms with his blue dressing gown wrapped around him like a king's mantel. He crossed shapely legs and waited patiently. He was certainly the king of something, John thought.

Without warning – because if he hesitated John knew he might never risk the action again - he crossed few two meters of space between them so fast he didn't see his own feet move, crouched down and caught Sherlock's restless hands in his own sweaty, nervous ones, holding them gently but firmly so that there was no escape for either of them. "Sherlock..."

Before even asking Watson tried to see if he could discover a truthful answer in the detective's frost-over-robin-egg-blue irises, but soon disappointed that his own deducing skills were just not equal to the task. What he did learn was that his friend smelled clean with the faintest hint of vanilla shampoo scent lingering in his hair. A single drop of water tickled a tempting trail from the still damp curls to his freshly shaved jaw and then to his long throat and John's eyes followed it, hooked on its trajectory to the tantalizing pectoral muscles and then to the edging of the blue silk dressing gown where it was gathered up.

Trying _not_ to wish he were the water dropJohn cleared his throat and screwed up his waning courage. _Bloody now or never._

"Sherlock...are you...are you..." _Why does everything in my life always have to be so BLOODY difficult?_ "Are you...in _love _with me?"

Sherlock studied his friend closely and his friend's grasping hands with barely contained alarm. But Watson would swear he saw a glowing tenderness nestled in Sherlock's stare, as though something warm and fragrant had blossomed in the chilled reserves of the young detective and was expanding outward toward him, about to envelope him, _claim_ him, as his own.

And then Sherlock opened his mouth and the romantic illusion popped like an over-inflated balloon.

"Don't be _stupid _John. It was of course inevitable."

XXX

Part 4 asap


	4. Chapter 4

The Dancing Man Part 4

By GE Waldo

**Rating**: Mature.

**Pairing**: John/Mary and Sherlock/OMC (sort of), and eventually Johnlock but probably nothing especially sexually graphic. Take warning though just in case!

**Summary**: Mycroft and John square off on a quest to keep Sherlock safe from what Mycroft see's as his brother's reckless judgement which he believes is endangering his brother's life. Plus two murder cases that not only challenge Sherlock's incredible abilities but pushes him to his mental limits. A continuation of **The Glass Heart**. (Slightly AU (In this universe Irene Adler and Moriarty are dead for sure and the story is set during a time of limbo _after_ Sherlock is back from the dead but _before_ Watson and Mary's wedding. **Duration**: several months at least)).

**Disclaimer**: Not mine but a fantasy never hurt anyone. Edited though I'm confident I missed things. Please do tell and I shall repair.

XXX

_Sorry for the lateness of this. Winter is my busy time, but spring/summer is my really busy time. Plus I will finish the Stargate:Atlantis fic - Promise!_

SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH

"Inevitable?" John repeated for the third time blatantly ignoring the flash of disapproval on Sherlock's features due to his - John knew the detective would have undoubtedly voiced if given a sufficient interval to remind him - needless repetition of questions already voiced. "You make it sound like falling in love with me – if that's what's going on, though I have no idea because it's _you_ we're talking about - was some sort of unavoidable _accident_."

"Simply a natural progression – a pheromone-al conscription as it were."

In trying to figure out that one John decided _fuck it!_ and instead just asked "Sorry - a _what_?"

"We have been subjected to each other's proximity - working together in and outside of this flat for more than two years. It is a matter of course - via somatosensory, visual, olfactory and other evolutionary responses - that our bodies each would eventually become...accustomed to the other. As a matter of course sooner or later one or both of us would, to use the vernacular, 'fall in love'- a common but sloppy definition of sexual arousal - at least to some degree." He indicated the indefinite-ness of _some _by a lazy wave of his right hand.

John rubbed two infinitely patient fingers over his brow. "'Evolutionary sexual _conscription_'...to _some_ degree? Mmm...yes..." Watson scratched his chin whiskers. He needed a shave. And a dictionary. And a drink the size of the Thames.

And a fucking psychiatrist. "Why that's..._charming_ Sherlock." With no little sarcasm – "You've just titillated the bloody breeches off me. Lucky me to have become smitten-ed over by the world's greatest sociopath." Although John had decided himself a long while back that the jury was still out on that last. John clasped his hands together in a gesture of summation. "So what you're trying to say is you falling in love with me – and again I still have no idea if this has actually happened because, well,_ again_ it's _you_ - was something totally beyond your control – that because we share tea and laptops your annoying human pheromones mixed together and like an evil villain took over your libido and _kidnapped_ your penis?"

"Ah...using humour to mitigate your discomfort with the situation, interesting." He said with a hint of scold, "though if I'm not mistaken somewhat inappropriate." But to John's astonishment Sherlock was dead serious. "However it is no secret that the aforementioned stimuli and perhaps bloody crime scenes and dangerous situations attract you - which really should not come as a surprise to you John, you hardly went to war for three years because you wanted to build sand castles. You_ like_ war, and dead bodies." And then Sherlock crossed his legs, placed his four primary fingers beneath his nose as though he was praying to the God of Deduction and readying himself to deduce his working partner down to his individual John Hamish Watson molecules but then gave a start. "Your blush is out of place - love is nothing to be ashamed of."

John stood up, walked around in a tiny circle, not certain whether to be angry or flattered or simply solve the equation by banging his head into a solid wall repeatedly until he was blissfully unconscious. "I am not ashamed of this – Christ! – _Whatever_ this is that we're now talking about which – and don't think I didn't notice your attempt to change the subject of our discussion – and that was _you_ we were originally talking about, you sly git! We're talking about _you _in love with _me_, not the other way around. And just so we're clear I am _not_ turned on by death."

"But you _are_ attracted to me."

John stopped his tiny, frantic back and forth across Sherlock's much abused carpet and shook his head trying to clear it. He raised a stern finger of warning to his clearly crazy friend. "Shut it. Just. _Shut._ It." He had a suspicion he would be saying a lot of that in the next twenty minutes or so. "Yeah, I suppose I am, like a moth is to an open _flame_ I'm beginning to think, you contrary, manipulative _prat_."

Sherlock frowned. "Why do you always resort to calling me names when we're having a difference of opinion?"

"Because you make me _murderous_ – that's why!" Watson slumped in his chair, took a deep clarifying breath and looked at his friend. "Sherlock, it's a simple question although I realise – because it's _you_ – the answer might defy all the wisdom of mankind. But it really is simple: Are you or are you not in love with me?"

"There is a possibility however you needn't concern yourself with it. I have devised a method of testing my hypothesis. I've devoted an entire room to it."

"Hypothesis...and a room...?"

"Yes." Sherlock cocked an eyebrow as though John was showing his all too slowness by not keeping up as expected. "That is what I said – a _room_, in my Mind Palace. I am certain that given sufficient time and positions I should be able to deduce the answer."

"Positions?"

"Of course. As unsanitary as it is, one must have in place particular parameters in order to conduct a scientific experiment with this sort of thing."

"Parameters...experiment... Are you hoping to dissect me? Because I've got a bit of a problem with that."

Sherlock blinked as though at the frankly stupid. "Of course not - I propose that we have sex."

John closed his eyes and rubbed at them. The world's worst migraine hinting its impending hammer of pain. "You...me...sex? In this room, or in your mind palace? Because if it's just in your head, go at it mate."

"You know my mind palace is where I have stored all my data on you and I have catalogued no fewer than seven women with whom you have dated since I've known you. With all of them you ate dinner, with five of them you got drunk or nearly-"

"Sherlock..."

"With four of them you had sex, and with two of them you had anal sex and/or cunnilingus..."

"Alright – stop! Now how in hell could you know that? _Any_ of that? I never brought any of those women here."

"You brought Sarah here."

"I never got beyond a snog or two with her because of your damn Chinese-circus-karate-arrow-shooting-assassin-murderers."

"And you brought yourself here of course, _afterward_. After that it was hardly difficult. The odors alone-"

"Stop."

"And by the way _"Chinese-circus-karate-arrow-shooting-assassin-murderers."_ would have been a better title for that particular investigation on your blog, a bit wordy but never-the-less more accurate than "The Lotus Mystery". I advise you log in and change it." Sherlock replied reasonably and also a bit insulted. "And anyway they weren't _my _murderers."

"To this day she's scared of me. At work she texts me from the next room. She probably thinks your insanity rubs off." John dropped his head into one hand and willed his headache to _please_ go away. "I see. So..." he felt like crawling into bed and having a good cry, "we take off our clothes, we have sex and then...?" He left the floor opened for Sherlock.

"And then these feelings you have for me will either intensify or go away. Simple."

"Right, simple. A man who is in love with me – and don't bloody deny it you posh git! – and who has never had sex with anyone in his life has devised an experiment involving _me_ having sex with _him_ to cure _me_ of wanting to have sex with _him_."

John cleared his throat and took a moment to convince his vascular system that, no, he was not having a heart attack but, yes, they will soon be down at a pub where they can share a frothy pint in celebration of losing his mind. "We're not going to do this. You're a master at twisting everything back around just so it lands somewhere besides at your size twelve's." John tried to stare down his bewildering friend, daring him to challenge the assertion.

"_Eleven's_." Sherlock was utterly unflappable. "You don't wish to participate? I fail to understand your reluctance. I interest you and even if you don't love me you do like having sex don't you? After we first met you started chatting up every female in sight -"

"_Christ!"_

John's heavy footsteps were on the stairs and descending faster than humanly possible. The outside door shook the whole house as he slammed it shut after him.

XXX

He was into his fourth pint by the time Sherlock tracked him down.

He stared up numbly at his detective friend who slid into the booth opposite him. "Took you long enough."

Sherlock cocked an eyebrow. "You only have four favorite drinking establishments; this one was farthest from the flat. Hardly more than a game of hide and seek." Sherlock waved an approaching waiter away. "You are upset with me."

John shook his head. "I'm upset with me."

"What for?"

"Because my fiancé broke up with me yesterday because even_ she_ knows I'm in love with you, you gorgeous, sexy, irritating bloody mind-boggling _bastard_."

Sherlock, to his own continued good health, did not argue the point. "Oh." His heart beat a startling crescendo against his rib cage, a little fluttering bird trying to get out of its cage. Only a pressing of lips together betray the staccato going on below his sternum. "But I'm right? You _are_ turned on by danger, by the hunt, by the thrill of chasing criminals and solving crimes but most especially by catching vile people at the end of your service weapon, and of course – for you – saving the life. You find it sexy as a matter of fact and therefore sexually arousing."

From behind beer-watered eyes John stared down his crime solving, thoroughly insane genius friend. "'Course I am you idiot. And, yes, you _are_ an idiot. An idiot faced with a question, an important question put to you directly, and you don't want to answer because it'd be like admitting it might be true. The whole thing scares the hell out of you, doesn't it?" John recalled the women he had taken after shortly after meeting Sherlock Holmes. And the many physical encounters spent dreaming it was Sherlock's rippling muscles and creamy skin beneath him instead of Sarah's or Nancy's or Rachel's or Whats-'er-name or Who-ever-the-fuck's. Over-compensation. A denial of desires. A refuting of night-fantasies he had silently and steadfastly denied in the light of day.

"I've never been scared of anything in my life."

Lucky bastard only he didn't believe him. "Shite! Were you scared of me dying?"

Everything in the pub shifted because a short, blondish earthquake called John Watson had just dropped a mountain on the floor before Sherlock's feet which stiff backed detective blinked, unable to formulate a single word, and then took refuge in looking away.

It took him another five or six seconds to answer, a virtual eternity for the witty detective, which meant the question had thrown him just enough to cause a mini apoplectic fit inside his head. "Our physical systems came to accept and then expect the presence of the other. A certain level of chemical attraction was only natural."

"Jesus, you can't say it, can you?" Watson drained his pint and waved for another.

Watson was staring and rubbing a palm over his mouth. Sherlock watched, fascinated, intensely curious to know what sort of sensations he would discover if it were his fingers there, or his lips. He had never been properly kissed before – if there was indeed a _proper_ method, and he himself had never kissed anyone. Not the way it was always being done on television, not with passion, not anyone he had_ wanted_ to kiss. Not willingly. Not so it felt nice and left him warm all over afterward and _counted_.

Except for a kiss that then arose in his mind un-summoned, one from long ago. A warm memory originally, as he recalled, from a time when he was barely more than twelve (after Mycroft had the year before gone off to achieve greatness at College and left his younger brother to cope with Daddy's scowls of worry over his "decidedly odd" second son and Mummy's fears over his "frightening abilities"), and where-by the opinions and words of doctors and psychologists he had been assigned the status of Highly-Intelligent-But-Emotionally/Socially-Disturbed-Child (the label not officially recorded because the professionals he had been taken him to and who had suggested it had been righteously refuted by Mummy with threats of civil suits and wished to protect their careers more than actually help a child understand that dissecting road-kill was not usually 'done' and why. Sherlock would have studiously ignored their advice anyway and continued his experiments. He hadn't actually _killed_ anything after all, merely appropriated carcases already devoid of life - what was the problem?), a label he had then torn off from the front door of his Mind Palace with a well placed mental pry-bar and replaced with Genius-Gloriously-Rebellious-High-Functioning-Sociopath-Who-does-Not-Need-Them-Or-Anyone-Else.

Anthony Geils, a young man who had become that rarest of things- a friend - had tried to kiss him nearing the end of the school year - Sherlock was already in the "Advanced" programs along with students older than him by three years including Anthony, a clumsy, wet contact of lips behind the Rugby bleachers which had taken Sherlock by surprise but had not, at first, been altogether unpleasant.

But Anthony, encouraged by the younger Sherlock's lack of resistance, had quickly presumed upon much more than a kiss however and Sherlock had then felt grabby, insistent, uninvited hands at the front of his trousers and inside his zipper. Waves of fear and loathing had erupted in Sherlock's stomach and then in his legs as he had fought the older lad off and escaped to the school loo.

The kiss had felt rather nice with the promise of more nice. The attempted molestation had left him feeling betrayed, and then contaminated, by his very own body. Frightening, illogical sensations that had taken him many days to expunge.

"So your love for me comes from your inner beaker of inadvertent attraction? I'm - what – an unfortunate accident?"

Sherlock realised he had let his attention slip a bit and had to drag his focus back to the sarcastic words coming from John's mouth. But he had managed to gather the gist of what john had been saying and also suspected that John was looking for complete honesty. Unfortunately he found himself having to hunt through mental rooms for the correct words. When people asked for honesty he, with much unpleasant past experience, noted that honesty wasn't always what they actually wanted to hear. Often they were hoping for words that matched what they had already determined in their own mind to be the correct ones, and reacted negatively when his did not meet up, which had been most of the time. "Essentially but I would not have put it so...coarsely. You are hardly an experiment, John. On the other hand physical love is hardly more than that – electro-chemical reactions, not much different than two electrodes forming a completed circuit."

"Again - _very_ romantic." Said with humour but Sherlock felt a sharp pang in his chest at John's watering eyes.

"I don't understand why you're upset. I care for you, John, perhaps not in the traditional sense, but you have become very useful to me and a valuable colleague, and I have expressed before that I love you. Perhaps I need to rephrase..."

"Sure. Like the way you love tea and your violin." John grabbed at his hair with both fists until little tufts were sticking up everywhere through his fingers. "Jesus _Christ_." Then he grabbed the others man's hands again, this time gripping them fiercely until the blood in the tips of Sherlock's fingers was squeezed out until they turned white and cold. "Sherlock, do I mean anything to you? I mean really _mean _something, something deep, something important; something so important that you went off for two years playing dead to protect my life. You did that Sherlock – you – Sherlock Holmes gave up everything for my life – for _me_. I can only imagine that you suffered for it. You _must_ have suffered during that time for _me_, so I am going to ask you one more time and if you will not give me a straight, _truthful_ answer, I will walk out that door and..." He took a deep shuddering breath. "I'm not sure I will ever speak to you again."

Sherlock was staring; his mouth had clamped shut half way through John's monologue and he could feel the tremor in the detective's hands. Sherlock, not for the first time ever, but certainly to John at least it was as plain as day – had been rendered speechless.

"Sherlock..." John scooted just a bit closer, his feet reaching out and hooking themselves around Sherlock's legs beneath the table. He could feel Sherlock's strong calves stiffen although he did not pull away. "I want you to search your _feelings_, not your bloody mind palace, not your thoughts, your _heart_. Please for Christ sake, for _my_ sake, please give me a straight answer. I _promise_ you there is no wrong answer but I absolutely need to know: Are. you. in. love. with. me?"

Sherlock's phone rang and the detective extradited one of his hands from John's, slowly in the hopes of perhaps not to startling John into a premature leap up and escape through the pub's exit, and then held up his index finger to forestall anymore conversation. He spoke for a moment into it, closed it, and then slipped it into his dressing gown pocket. "That was Lestrade." He said, smiling across the table at the object of his involuntary love, not yet spoken aloud, not yet, no, but soon, when the time was not so taut with emotions and feelings and things he could not pin down to a board like his insect collection when he was seven and examine under a microscope at his leisure. So elusive, feelings were. So a jumble of conflicting thoughts, so ethereal and insubstantial and utterly _confounding!_

_So_ not his area.

He fixed John with a narrow grin; a few polished teeth were showing. John caught its significance. Visible teeth indicated glee. "Crime scene?"

Sherlock jumped up. "Lestrade has more bodies for us. We must go."

And then a text came in as well. And Sherlock read it." No smile this time. Puzzlement, though – a narrowing of his eyes though not in the pleasantness of surprise at someone else's unexpected observation or cleverness. "And Rupert Straite has escaped from prison."

Even John was willing to forego any further discussion of feelings for the moment, to Sherlock's everlasting relief. "Perhaps we can further examine this new phenomenon of our conscripted love for each other via a crime scene setting?" Sherlock suggested like it was something he had done before and had just plucked the idea out of his bottomless experiences of love in its many life-settings.

John snorted but Sherlock remained un-discouraged. "Should prove enlightening – don't you agree?"

John was not quite willing to drop the previous subject yet. Not entirely. "You care for me – right?" He asked.

Sherlock studied his friend. What answer would make John come along? Stand at his side and be the support and quiet, deadly strength that he so sorely needed now in his life and within his work? He stood, staring down at the very drunk – but sobering up - Watson from his imposing height which might have intimidated a lesser man. But John Watson was nothing if not singular.

The thousandth man in fact. Sherlock's eyes upon his good friend were tender. Perhaps, in this instance, the truth would be welcomed? Truth was so much simpler after all than dissembling. "How could I not? I may be a sociopath, John, but I'm not stupid."

XXX

Greg Lestrade looked askance at Watson and he could feel the inspector's curious eyes shooting back and forth between him and Sherlock who was presently bent over another eviscerated body – this time a woman – whose left leg was bent at the knee. The rest of her limbs lay close to her body. Her bloodied blonde hair was fanned across her face. Both arms showed trails of injection marks painted by blue and yellow bruising. "She was a user." Lestrade pointed out the obvious. "Stabbed multiple times." He added in between gum chewing. "Purse is missing. She's a known street walker. Stays at a local cheap bedsitter – sort of a half-way house type place."

He spoke in his customary telegraphic style; clips of words weaved into a loose but plausible theory. "Lots of con's live there, in an' out. Looks like a John robbery to me that went a bit wrong, or maybe her pimp got a bit angry. Some o' these girls keep back a bit more of the profits than they're s'pposed to."

Sherlock acted as though he wasn't listening although both of the men knew he was. This time Sherlock was examining the dead body instead of simply photographs and an alleyway stained by days-old blood. Watson had done his usual examination to determine the cause of death. Lestrade's man Anderson had been correct. Stab wounds, two striking deeply enough Watson suspected it had nearly bisected her liver and one slicing even deeper into her kidney. The blood loss would have been rapid and, even had intervention come in time, most likely fatal in minutes.

Sherlock nodded, accepting the assessment, himself no slouch when it came to evaluating a cause of death but he was also intelligent enough not to question the expertise of two professionals at face value. Not unless he found sufficient reason to. "Attacked from behind and her right leg moved after death." He pointed to the blood smears on the concrete next to her left leg. "You see here and here, where the blood had dripped down her legs before she fell. Someone then moved her right leg into this position, leaving her knee pointing in a westerly direction," He lifted his eyes to follow his own trail of thought and John watched him. The two things – eyes and mind- were connected by an invisible string. Sherlock's deductions – his very thoughts – connected to his body which sprang into action as though having been barked at. I an instant he was in motion.

He set off westerly. Ahead lay a short row of ramshackle houses, several boarded up. At one time they had been someone's homes, the bright, sunny paint-jobs that once were indicating families had lived and grown here among new yellow paint and shiny swing sets and manicured lawns, but were now sagging husks of neglect, the paint peeling, the lawns overgrown with weeds, the porches heaved up in some spots and falling in at others.

The nearest one of the four was Sherlock's focus and Lestrade and John followed, Lestrade indicating Anderson tag along with as lift of his chin.

Sherlock bent as close to the rotting wood of the outer wall as he could without actually touching it. He was sniffing the wall as high up as he was able and then crouching down to near the level of the weeds. At once he began tearing at the weeds, clearing a spot away from the mottled paint. "Here." He announced.

John, and even Lestrade, knew what to do by now and while Sherlock stood back and watched as they began tossing hand-full's of dirt at the area until an image appeared.

Watson took out his own phone and snapped a few photos while Anderson, with his expensive forensic camera, took dozens of the same from every angle.

Sherlock meanwhile had taken a mental image for his own brain files and spoke. "Another dancing figure," he said. "This one is the same as the first I found," he said. "The outline of an "S"."

Watson repeated, knowing it was a bit stupid. "Another S?"

Sherlock nodded, a tiny puzzled line settling between his brows. "We have two S's now and a T."

Lestrade raised his eyebrows but offered no insights other than "Maybe you'll get more letters at the other murder. Come on."

But a noise – a dull thud – interrupted their retreat.

Lestrade looked at Anderson and raised his palm in a signal that meant _You stay here_. He withdrew his weapon and approached the porch of the tumbled house, and Sherlock followed with John taking up the rear. Anderson watched with a pissed off expression because he was told he wasn't wanted.

But Watson knew Lestrade doesn't care about tit about Anderson's feelings right now because there's a possible killer inside the shit hole and his steps are making the old boards groan under his weight. Watson feels the comforting presence of his own military issue side arm against his skin at the waist of his trousers, hidden at the back beneath his jumper. He knows better than to draw it while at an official investigation with Lestrade but it still felt good to have it.

Lestrade finally reached the door of the house. With one heavy boot he kicked it hard. The rotting wood gave little resistance as the door flew open in a shower of dust and splinters, and then sagging on its side, clinging by one sad hinge like a torn lip.

Inside in the middle of what once was a sitting room where children played, lay a man curled up on his side with blood running from a slice across his waist. In his one hand was clutched a lethal looking knife with a curved blade. Nearby, next to his soiled trainer lay another, smaller knife, also smeared with blood.

Lestrade approached the prone man with weapon drawn and aimed and kicked the smaller blade aside. He, carefully keeping his weapon dead-enter to the mad's chest, pressed the sole of his boot to the man's wrist until he dropped the second knife, which Lestrade then scooted away across the filthy planks with another well placed toe-kick. "Doctor..." He said, inviting Watson for a closer look.

Watson dropped to the man's aid, checking his wound with sure hands. "Wound's not too deep, but he's lost a lot of blood. He'll make it as long as we get him to a hospital soon."

Sherlock was already speaking into his phone after dialing nine-nine-nine. After he was finished barking the street address and pertinent details into the tiny speaker he cut the call and dropped his phone back into the depths of his coat pocket, all the while staring at the prone man oddly.

Lestrade, however, appeared a bit more optimistic at this turn of events. "What say to this being our killer?" He asked rhetorically and sounding quite pleased about it. "At least of the latest girl."

But Sherlock merely stared at the bleeding man, offering no comment and about which John didn't like one bit. It wasn't usual. Not that Sherlock was in any way remotely a usual person, but still. Sherlock should at least be refuting Lestrade if he disagreed and by the workings on his face, there was something regarding this up-turning that he did not. "Sherlock?"

But Sherlock only turned away. "By all means Inspector, let us determine what this man is doing here at _all_."

XXX

The other murder held no surprises other than a new dancing figure painted nearby in the shape of something approximating an M, the figure contorted into a shape only a gymnast might accomplish while standing upside-down on one hand, but it was after all just a painted figure. The only thing that was unusual...

"Why'd they use actual paint this time?" Watson asked staring at the photo's he had taken with his own phone, sipping tea he had located from a machine after they returned to Lestrade's office. Bright orange paint coloured the dancing figure, the hue one might find in a public bathroom or on a plastic road barrier. Serviceable but ugly. Offensive to the eye.

Sherlock answered though his mind was clearly in more places than one at that moment. He continued to stare at the earlier crime photos. "Because our killer knows I know what to look for now so there is no more need for subterfuge. Easier to carry a can of paint than a jar of grease and a brush."

Reasonable as always, John thought. "What's bothering you?" He asked, out of the earshot of the others, standing close to Sherlock's side - closer than he needed to - Lestrade's office was not _that_ small. Sherlock noted the unconscious behavior without comment. Having John close had never bothered him and less so now than ever. In fact it felt...comforting - familiar, like an old blanket, one well-used but kept safe; a grandmother's quilt perhaps.

Or an old hand-knit jumper lovingly made just for you by someone who cared.

Sherlock shook away the unproductive lines of thought and viciously turned his mind back to the crime-scene photos.

Several more crowded into Lestrade's office, including Donovan and the officer who was delivering lunch by way of take-away sandwiches and coffee. Sherlock declined both but John took up what he was offered and bit into a concoction of sprouts, cheese, ham and mustard. It was heaven. Plus it would go a long way in soaking up his earlier alcohol binge.

"Nothing makes sense." Sherlock said to John as his friend chewed. The sharp smell of mustard stung Sherlock's nostrils and he snuffed to dispel it. The very act of eating during a case was something about Watson that had always irked him. "How do you _think_ with your stomach full?"

"How do you not waste away with yours so empty? And what did you mean before?" John asked around a mouth-full of bread and meat.

"That our serial killer would turn out to be a simple-minded pimp-er of flesh, and apparently one who could not hold his own against a woman half his size." He pointed out.

John swallowed, adding before the next delicious bite. "Seems to me if he's willing to pimp, he might also be willing to be a worse bastard and stab a few girls."

"And all of the victims were not girls." Sherlock groused.

"But all of the murders happened less than three miles from each other." Lestrade reminded him, chewing on his own layers of bread and meats. "Maybe he's taken up a new hobby?" He suggested, half believing it. It would be so much easier. "Maybe these aren't his first killings? Maybe he started elsewhere? _Maybe_ he got a taste for the wet work a long time ago? And since you never work on the simple cases because they're 'too boring', for your information not every killer is a clever killer."

"Yes." Sherlock snapped. "Otherwise how would the Yard catch any of them?"

Lestrade overlooked the insult, accustomed to dismissing fifty percent of whatever Sherlock said in a heated moment or it would have been impossible to work with the man. "At any rate, we'll know soon enough if the weapon and the blood are a match for the victim and our suspect. In the meantime," he said directly to John, "take your grumpy room-mate somewhere far away from my office." Lestrade looked pained by something and the point was underlined when he reached into a desk drawer for a bottle of paracetamol tablets, shaking out a small army of them into his palm, and washing them down his throat with the remnants of his, by now, cold coffee.

In the cab ride back to Baker Street Sherlock was quiet.

"What's wrong?" John asked in a sigh, not really expecting an answer. Sherlock's funks could go on for days. Really the man had perfected The Great Sulk.

"Lestrade is a fool-"

"He's really not."

"I was speaking in general."

"In _general _he's really not."

"If you must - then in specifics - the case, Watson, the _case_! Our killer seems to have more purpose than merely _'liking the wet work'_."

"Lestrade was saying it as a possibility, Sherlock, that's all."

"It's lazy deduction. Hardly more than guessing."

"It's been a full day. Some people actually _need_ rest. Lestrade looked like hell. I'm sure the Commissioner's putting huge pressure on him to solve these murders, the bloody papers are full of them and people are scared."

Sherlock sat silently but Watson chanced a look. The detective's irritation had smoothed out, somewhat, to a mere frustration, mixed perhaps with a grudging acknowledgment that humanity – which of course in the detective's mind excluded _himself_ - is rife with frailties and that Lestrade no doubt fell somewhere within that category. Possibly it had not previously occurred to Sherlock that the Detective Inspector might have such weights on his shoulders. "Perhaps..."

It was ridiculous how Sherlock's tiny commiserations (usually after the fallible and fragile human condition of someone close to him was once again heavily pointed out), made John's heart glow, which then made him feel somewhat of a man who had become accustomed to not expecting too much in the way of fellow feeling out of his room-mate and best friend. But, John reasoned to himself trying to ease his sharp disappointment in Sherlock, the sociopath, if that's what Sherlock was, was actually learning what it was to feel sympathy. A bit.

Perhaps enough.

Good enough anyway.

For now.

XXX

"John, I'm bleeding."

John tore off his jumper, bunched it up and used its less than satisfactory wool-blend fibers to try and staunch the puncture wound in Sherlock's lean torso. The blood refused to stop its warm escape into the cool night air. "Yes, I know Sherlock, just lie down and keep still."

He pushed against the detective's attempt to rise from his prone place in the dirty alleyway, surrounded as they were by dark and fog and now blood. Anyone coming upon them might be reminded of a scene out of a cheap novel of intrigue. It was actually ridiculous. "Shit! Sherlock, roll onto your side – I'll help you. Come on, that's it. Good, now _stay still_." John instructed gently and then snarled his own idiocy to no one but himself.

The killer, whoever he was, had, to use a phrase from his latest detective novel, 'got the jump' on them or more specifically Sherlock who had taken four inches of a blade to his body before his attacker escaped.

John pulled Sherlock's white dress shirt (the silk one that looked as good as any silk could ever look when draped over all that lean muscle and ivory skin), from inside his trousers, which shirt was rapidly turning darker with the colour of life – really almost looking _black_ – in the feeble light of the one street lamp thirty meters away, and now Sherlock's blood was soaking through the jumper and beginning to pool beneath the expensive suit jacket and trousers. Even when faced with running down dark lanes chasing a murderer, Sherlock dressed to kill – metaphorically at least.

"Your suit's going to be ruined – sorry." John muttered as he tossed aside the jumper and pulled his own shirt off popping the buttons as he did, not caring where they flew. It helped though, the cotton of the checkered shirt doing a much better job as a temporary bandage than the loose weave of the jumper.

When Lestrade and his men, followed by the ambulance, arrived on scene, John was bent over Sherlock; bare chest smeared with blood not his own, barking orders at the emergency technicians like someone with the authority to do it. Like a doctor.

XXX

_Here we are once more.__MH_

John ignored the text from Mycroft Holmes _– 'Here __**we**__ are'? Mycroft Fucking Holmes had not been to the hospital yet – the miserable sod!_

He turned his attention to Sherlock lying unconscious on his left side in the hospital bed, looking pale and decidedly not a bit good. This time with a stab wound to his lower back that, had it been two inches higher, would have all but bisected his right kidney and internally bled him to death. As it was he lost a lot of blood en-route to The London and needed transfusions by the time they got him there. John had not remembered his gun and his own hands, no matter how strong, had not been long enough or quick enough to prevent the injury. He should have suspected the man would be carrying. Sherlock should also have suspected it of course but Sherlock was not the soldier – _he_ was. John had gone over it in his mind a hundred times and he _should_ have known. If he had been the criminal in question – any criminal - he would have brought protection as well and tucked it into his belt beneath his shirt ready to snatch and _strike_.

John had even agreed when Sherlock wanted to seek out the suspect themselves, to make sure they were on the right track. _Stupid!_ He ought to have called in Lestrade as soon as the words had escaped Sherlock's mouth. He ought to have been smarter. He was a soldier for Christ's sake. He understood how to be prepared for danger and had let his guard down. He had been enjoying himself too much.

Blind luck had led them to a fresh crime scene – blind luck or some fresh depth of genius-cum-guess-work on Sherlock's part – one that bore all the personal mark's of their serial killer. Even Sherlock had not expected to run into the killer himself still lurking at the scene like a ghoul. Hidden, yes, but not invisible. Not to Sherlock.

John bit his lip at his own foolishness. The very things he was always warning Sherlock about he himself had dashed toward whole-heartedly. And because of that Sherlock might have died. Would have died had they not been in the city.

"What happened _this_ time?"

Mycroft. Standing at the door, his tone conveying half a life-time of weariness and worry over his reckless, injury-prone younger brother. "Did he jump in to save you?"

For a moment John would not dignify the elder Holmes with an answer, but then it seemed futile – and stupid – to avoid it. Undoubtedly Mycroft already knew. He had the yard in his back pocket. "Not...exactly."

Mycroft tapped his umbrella on the polished tile and sighed. There really was little left to say between them and the older Holmes brother seemed to sense that as well. "Do you _really_ love my brother John..?"

Watson bit his lip, his eyes never leaving the O2 prong stuck up Sherlock's nose to help him breathe and assist in the healing of his body once again_. _

_Jesus yes._ Angels in heaven help him he loved the insane fabulous freak of bloody nature and God. Christ he loved him so goddamn much he could hardly breathe around him most days. _Un-fucking-equivocally yes I love him you ball-busting fuck!_

John said none of it to Mycroft. "You have to ask..?"

"No." Mycroft said softly. "No I don't." He cleared his throat and the feeling moment was over. "The doctors assure me he will recover enough in a few days to go home. Will you be there to...assist?"

"You know I will." John said. "We have a case..." Not a good reason to continue to ignore something that was making more and more sense to him. He was bad for Sherlock's long-term health.

"And once this case is over..?"

John didn't answer aloud or directly. 'The Dancing Men.' That's what I'm going to call it, this case, when I write it up. When he solves it."

"The Dancing Men?" Mycroft repeated without scoff. "But you didn't answer my question doctor."

"You want me to abandon him."

"I want you to do what is necessary to keep him safe."

Oh how even the idea of leaving made his chest ache. Great waved of agony all contained in the space of an organ the size of his fist. One more word from Mycroft and he was going to beat the man unrecognisable. _Fuck!_ But in the next minute didn't raise a finger to Mycroft because the prick was making some sense. Fuck the prat for being right. _Fuck him!_ "What if I can't?"

But John realised, and hated, that the decision was well on its way to effectively being made for him. He knew what he needed to do now. Didn't want to – God – no he didn't. How much would it hurt Sherlock? How would his face look when John packed his things and walked out? It seemed impossible, what Mycroft was asking him to do. It seemed like the most impossible act to ever carry out by any human over all time.

Stop loving Sherlock.

No, not stop loving him, stop trying to protect him. Stop causing him injury through his failure to do just that. _Stop breathing then? Is that all? _"I don't want to..." He whispered it._ I love him so much. _And he couldn't even explain why, not entirely. None of it made sense. _But I love him all the same. God please help me, I love him. I was __**supposed**__ to, wasn't I? Why did you send me to him if not for this?_

God ignored him as usual and John mentally flipped Him the bird.

"The Dancing Men..." Mycroft repeated again. "Do it for his own good, John, or do you think that I cannot make my brother waltz?"

XXX


End file.
